The Gateway Pundit, Infamous Conspiracy Blog, Declares Bankruptcy After Suit From Election Workers

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

The founder of the Gateway Pundit, the infamous conspiracy theory site, announced on Wednesday that the company had declared bankruptcy.

Jim Hoft published a message on the website that read, “TGP Communications, the parent company of The Gateway Pundit, recently made the decision to seek protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the Southern District of Florida as a result of the progressive liberal lawfare attacks against our media outlet.”

Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, sued the Gateway Pundit in December of 2021, alleging that Jim and Joe Hoft, twin brothers, behind the conspiracy theory site engaged in “a campaign of lies” that “instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that has forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety.”

The Gateway Pundit saw its traffic soar surrounding the 2020 presidential election as it published story after story parroting then-President Donald Trump’s roundly debunked allegations of election fraud that led to the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In January 0f 2020, the Gateway Pundit had some 1.7 million unique readers going into election year. In January of this year, that number had dropped some 54 percent to 813,000 users, according to Comscore data. TGP refutes the ComScore data, saying that the site no longer shares its traffic data with ComScore and instead uses an internal StatCounter, which registered 24 million users in January of 2020 and 55 million in January of 2024.

Hoft’s statement added, “This is not an admission of fault or culpability. This is a common tool for reorganization and to consolidate litigation when attacks are coming from all sides. It allows TGP to consolidate this lawfare in one court for ultimate resolution.”

Freeman and Moss also sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation after he accused them of working to steal the 2020 election from Trump. Giuliani was ordered in December of 2023 to pay Freeman and Moss some $148 million in damages for the years of harassment and abuse they suffered as a result of the unfounded allegations he pushed. Giuliani has since appealed the verdict and lost.

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