The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website, published a note from its editor on Saturday acknowledging that two election workers in Georgia did not engage in ballot fraud in 2020, days after the publication settled a lawsuit brought against it for falsely reporting that they had tampered with election results.
Earlier this week, the site settled with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two former Georgia election workers. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
“Georgia officials concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud by election workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena in November 2020. The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night,� said the note published to the website Saturday morning by the publication’s founder and editor, Jim Hoft. “A legal matter with this news organization and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement.�
The Gateway Pundit wrote a series of articles about the 2020 presidential election amplifying spurious claims that Freeman, Moss and former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer helped rig the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden.
The Gateway Pundit had denied wrongdoing and previously said it was seeking bankruptcy protection.
In 2022, Freeman and Moss settled a similar claim with One America News. Terms were not disclosed. OAN later broadcast a statement saying that a Georgia investigation by the state’s officials had shown that the women “did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night.�
In July, a federal judge in Florida threw out a bankruptcy case filed by the Gateway Pundit, ruling that the site sought bankruptcy protection in “bad faith� to avoid having to pay potential damages in defamation suits related to the site’s reporting on the 2020 election. The ruling allowed the defamation cases to proceed.
Moss and Freeman were drawn into the controversy after Rudy Giuliani, then Trump’s top campaign lawyer, alleged publicly in December 2020 that the mother-daughter pair had rigged the outcome in their state. Giuliani’s claims have not held up, and Georgia election officials have said that the allegations were false. But none of the explanations kept the two from receiving a barrage of harassment, threats and racist attacks.
Last year, amid a defamation suit filed against him by Freeman and Moss that he eventually lost, Giuliani declared in a court filing that he was no longer contesting their claims that his statements were false.
He has so far avoided paying out the $148 million awarded by the court. The two women sued him in August in an attempt to seize his assets, including his condos in New York and Florida, and also his New York Yankees World Series rings — among the items he listed as assets when he filed for bankruptcy during the defamation case. A status conference scheduled for Oct. 17 in federal court in the Southern District of New York will hear arguments related to that case.
The Gateway Pundit still faces a separate defamation suit from Coomer.
Sarah Ellison and Amy Gardner contributed reporting.
