DANNY WICENTOWSKI
Jim Hoft, a.k.a. The Gateway Pundit (center), photographed at a campaign rally for Eric Greitens.
A St. Louis-based conservative blogger whose conspiracy theories stirred up Trump voters after the 2020 election will likely have to answer in court to the claims against him.
St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer ruled against James Hoft of the Gateway Pundit in a seven-page order earlier this week. The judge’s ruling effectively stymies two possible strategies for Hoft to combat the suit filed by two Georgia poll workers accusing him of defamation — dismissing both Hoft’s counterclaim against the women and barring him from pursuing an anti-SLAPP claim.
Stelzer’s ruling was first reported by the Gateway Journalism Review.
For more than a decade, Hoft’s Gateway Pundit has been a source of innuendo and dubious claims. Just one such example: Last year’s mass shooting at at St. Louis’ CPVA High School, where he identified the wrong man as the shooter. No biggie, right?
But Hoft’s claims about mother-and-daughter poll workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss made the previously unknown women key figures in a meritless conspiracy theory about a “stolen” election — and led to harassment so severe, Freeman had to flee her home. And the “meritless” part that was obvious to anyone paying attention is now being admitted even by people who maligned them; Rudy Giuliani, for one, admitted earlier this week as part of a separate lawsuit that he made false statements when he said Moss and Freeman mishandled ballots.
Unsurprisingly, the women sued Hoft, as well as his brother Joseph, who is a contributor to the site. But what might have come as an unpleasant surprise to the Hofts is that Freeman and Moss secured the representation of what’s become the city’s most prominent law firm, Dowd Bennett, for their defamation suit.
The Hofts attempted to fight back. Led by Jonathon Burns of St. Louis, they filed a counterclaim accusing the women of defaming them, based entirely on statements the women’s lawyers had made about the case. They also filed an anti-SLAPP motion, a legal maneuver designed to stop litigation that’s meant to interfere with someone’s First Amendment rights.
Stelzer dismissed the counterclaim and struck the anti-SLAPP motion. He wrote that the lawyers’ allegedly defamatory statements merely restated facts from the litigation. And Hofts’ lawyers were wrong to try to use Georgia’s anti-SLAPP laws; Missouri’s, which deal only with speech at public hearings or meetings, simply don’t apply.
With those decisions, Stelzer is setting the case up to go to trial — or settlement. Either way, it appears likely the Hoft brothers and their website could be following in Giuliani’s path. And these days, that’s an increasingly unenviable road.
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