A settlement has been reached between Gateway Pundit and two Georgia election officials who accused the St. Louis-based far-right website of defamation in a civil lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court.

The notice of settlement was filed Monday afternoon. The disputing parties “inform the court that the parties have entered into an agreement to resolve all claims and counterclaims asserted in the … lawsuit, with settlement to occur on March 29, 2025,” the notice said.

“The parties respectfully request that this court set aside the trial date set for this matter,” the notice continues, “and stay this matter until March 29, 2025. At this time, the parties will dismiss this matter pending satisfaction of the parties’ terms and conditions of settlement agreement.”

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

While the Fox News case goes to trial, the far-right St. Louis website faces its own libel lawsuit

A representative from the two election officials’ legal team wrote in an email that the settlement provided “mutual satisfaction” and was “fair and reasonable.” Poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss could not be reached.

Jonathan Burns, the St. Louis-based attorney for Gateway Pundit owner Jim Hoft, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In June 2022, the two women gave emotional testimony before the House special committee investigating January 6th^Th Attack on the Capitol because of the harassment, including death threats, that resulted from false accusations that they committed voter fraud on behalf of Joe Biden during the counting of votes on election night in 2020.

Among those spreading the lies was the Gateway Pundit, who repeatedly boasted that he was the first to identify the two women as culprits in the alleged fraud. Georgia election officials immediately denied the allegations, but the Gateway Pundit made them in dozens of articles for years.

The tentative settlement appears to mean that Gateway Pundit will face little to no public accountability in court for his repeated falsehoods.

The case, first filed in St. Louis Circuit Court in December 2021, appeared to prove to be a high-profile test of the limits of the First Amendment, not unlike the defamation suits filed by parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook against Alex’s lawsuit Jones and Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News.

Both cases resulted in severe sentences against the defendants.

A jury in Washington, D.C. awarded the two women more than $148 million in a defamation lawsuit they filed against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for spreading the same lies about them that they told Gateway Pundit accused.

Some legal observers raised the prospect of a similar verdict from a jury in St. Louis against the defendants in the suit – TGP Communications, doing business as Gateway Pundit; Jim Hoft, the sole owner of the company; and his identical twin brother Joe, who contributes to the website.

The trial in St. Louis was scheduled to begin March 10.

False fraud claims a focus of Rudy Giuliani’s 2020 testimony in Missouri was the St. Louis defamation lawsuit

However, it appears that the two women have yet to receive a dime from Giuliani, so the prospect of a settlement in the St. Louis case may have seemed worthwhile. And the apparent settlement in the St. Louis case has precedent — in April 2022, the two women settled their similar claims with One America News Network. The terms of this agreement were not disclosed. However, OANN later released a statement saying an investigation by Georgia officials found the women “did not commit voter fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night.”

What may have prompted the Hofts to settle, said a lawyer familiar with such cases, was the failure of their bankruptcy filing in Florida last July. Had they been granted bankruptcy protection, the St. Louis defamation case would have been stayed indefinitely.

But instead, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach dismissed the case as a bad-faith filing, “reflecting the use of bankruptcy as a mere litigation tactic.”

During the bankruptcy proceedings, it was revealed that Gateway Pundit had media insurance that included $2 million in gross benefits, $700,000 of which had already been spent on legal fees in defending the St. Louis case. The attorney, who is familiar with similar cases, said it’s possible the Hofts wanted to use the remaining insurance money to settle the case or help put it behind them rather than deplete it further with more fighting.

The settlement could mean the Hofts avoid the potentially decisive blow that many observers thought a jury in St. Louis could deal to their website, one of the most influential on the far right. It also appears to mean that the information uncovered by the two lawyers’ lawyers during the pre-trial investigation will never be made public.

For example, it was known that the lawyers were looking into the company’s financial records and wanted to find out how exactly the Gateway expert converted clicks on the site’s website into money, and how great their financial motives were for repeating their lies.

It was also known that the lawyers were supposed to depose the Hoft brothers – or perhaps had even done so when the agreement was reached. Now, everything the Hofts said in those depositions, if they occurred, will remain under a protective order.

This story was originally published by Gateway Journalism Review.