Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, talks with Stephen K. Bannon while appearing on an episode of Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio (Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM).
The dismissal of its bankruptcy case in Florida is not stopping the Gateway Pundit from seeking a continued delay in the defamation case against it by two Georgia poll workers. But the case may be moving ahead soon regardless.
In a motion filed Aug. 5 in the St. Louis Circuit Court, lawyers for the Gateway Pundit and for its owner, James Hoft, and his twin brother, Joe, said the stay in the defamation case that was issued when they filed for bankruptcy last April should remain in place because they plan to appeal the dismissal of the bankruptcy petition.
Restarting the defamation case in St. Louis before the resolution of the appeal, the lawyers argued, could result in the case “proceeding through fits and starts, with the bankruptcy stay being in effect, then likely in effect again … prudence and judicial economy would favor a stay by this court.”
The Hofts’ lawyers filed their formal notice in the Florida bankruptcy court of their intention to appeal three days later, on Aug. 8.
But on Aug. 7, Peter Dunne — the court-appointed special master in the St. Louis case — set a new deadline for completion of discovery in the case in light of the dismissal of the bankruptcy and the fact that no appeal had been filed at that time. The new deadline is Nov. 10, two months later than the one that had been in place before the bankruptcy filing in late April derailed the schedule.
Dunne also noted that the case remains on the docket for jury trial in the week of March 10, 2025.
Missouri lawsuit isn’t the only defamation case against far-right site Gateway Pundit
Now it appears it will be up to the St. Louis Circuit Court whether to accept Dunne’s proposed recommendation. That could be encouraging for the plaintiffs, because the court has to this point shown considerable deference to Dunne’s recommendations.
Lawyers for the two Georgia poll workers — Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss — have argued that the bankruptcy filing itself was a stall tactic in a case where delay has been the strategy from the beginning. The two women sued the Hofts and TGP Communications LLC, which does business as Gateway Pundit, in December 2021. They said Gateway Pundit’s repeated false accusations that they committed ballot fraud led to death threats and other harassment.
In December 2021, the two women also filed a defamation suit against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who made the same accusations against them. But in that case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, it took only two years for a jury verdict to be rendered — awarding the two women compensatory and punitive damages of more than $148 million.
In St. Louis, however, the Hofts have thus far been able to avoid any resolution by seeking a change in venue, resisting discovery orders, counter-suing the attorneys for the plaintiffs and other means. The same strategy has also worked thus far in dragging out a defamation case filed in Denver against Hoft and Donald Trump’s campaign by Eric Coomer, a former executive of Dominion Voting Systems.
That case was filed a year before the one in St. Louis.
In dismissing the Gateway Pundit bankruptcy case, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mindy A. Mora wrote that the company “remains both balance sheet and cash flow solvent. There is no present financial distress, no looming foreclosure sale, no prospect of a market crash. There is only the State Court Litigation in which TGP must defend itself. That’s not a basis for bankruptcy relief; it’s the justice system in operation. … TGP filed bankruptcy purely as a litigation strategy… The Court will dismiss this bankruptcy case as a bad faith filing.”
This story was originally appeared in the Gateway Journalism Review and is being republished with permission.
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