ruby Freeman ga election
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big in GA indictment
SEE RUDYG 4
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an 10 24
'Sweet justice': Rudy Giuliani mocked as judge seizes almost all of his property
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148M $ DEFAMATION, THEN LIED AGAIN (EXHON EVID ALWAYS ON THE WAY, THO HE BACKED OUT ON TESTIFYING;) SO THEY SUED AGAIN
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an 12 23
at Turning Point USA's AmeriFest gathering, Trevian Kutti — one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference case — posed for a photo with Capitol rioter Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. The QAnon Shaman. On Monday, December 18, the Chicago-based Kutti posted the photo (which shows her raising her middle finger) on Instagram. And that same day, her attorneys filed a motion to drop her as a client.
Kutti's Instagram post, referring to Chansley, reads, "just like they lied on him THEY ARE LYING ON ME." Chansley served time in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.
Atlanta-based attorney Darryl Cohen, who has been representing Kutti in Willis' case, told The Messenger, "In order to have a good lawyer-client relationship, the client has to listen. The client has to be on board, and you have to be paid. All these things have to happen. I'm not saying any of those things did or didn't happen, but you can extrapolate."
Cohen, according to Messenger reporters Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon and Darren Samuelsohn, said he was speaking in general terms and didn't talk about Kutti specifically.
The attorney, however, also told The Messenger, "This case is so unusual and so high profile with everybody looking at it under a microscope, that you've got to be very careful as to what you say because you never know who's coming after you."
Kutti, an ex-publicist for R&B singer R. Kelly and the pro-Donald Trump rapper formerly known as Kanye West, is facing RICO and witness intimidation charges in Willis' case but is free on bail — at least for now.
The Messenger's Zachary Leeman, on December 4, reported that Willis' office was considering a request to revoke Kutti's bail in response to threatening comments she made on Instagram about former Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman.
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timeline
GIULIANI ADMITS LYING ABOUT ELECTIONS WORKERS
JULY 25, 2023
Giuliani, Trump's attorney, admits to making false statements against two Fulton County poll workers who came under the dogged attack of election deniers in the aftermath of Georgia’s 2020 election. Giuliani acknowledged in a U.S. District Court filing that he wouldn't object to a judge finding his statements caused emotional distress to former workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss. They were accused of illegal ballot counting in a controversial State Farm Arena video after the 2020 election.
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6 23?! cleared
https://www.alternet.org/georgia-board-of-elections/
==
j6 ch 5
...One of the most striking examples of the terror that President Trump and his allies caused came in Georgia, where election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, mother and daughter, were besieged by incessant, terrifying harassment and threats that often evoked racial violence and lynching, instigated and incited by the President of the United States.
As described earlier, in a State legislative hearing in Georgia, Giuliani publicly—and baselessly—accused Freeman and Moss of engaging in criminal conduct. He showed a video of Freeman passing Moss a ginger mint before claiming that the two women, both Black, were smuggling USB drives “as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” 366
President Trump seemed fixated on Freeman and Moss, too. He played surveillance video showing them inside the State Farm Arena at a December 5th rally in Georgia,367 and mentioned Freeman by name 18 times during the January 2nd call to Secretary of State Raffensperger in which he asked the Secretary to simply “find” enough votes to ensure victory.368
Freeman’s and Moss’s lives were forever changed. After their contact information was published, they were besieged by the President’s supporters. In early December 2020, Freeman “told police she had received hundreds of threats at her home.” 369 Moss’s son also started receiving threatening phone calls, including one stating he “should hang alongside [his] nigger momma.” 370
In the wake of President Trump’s December 5, 2020, rally, Freeman called 911 because strangers had come to her home trying to lure her out, sending threatening emails and text messages.371 She pleaded with the 911 dispatcher for help after hearing loud banging on her door just before 10 p.m. “Lord Jesus, where’s the police?” she asked the dispatcher. “I don’t know who keeps coming to my door.” “Please help me!” 372
Ultimately, Freeman fled from her own home based on advice from the FBI.373 She would not move back for months.374
In her testimony to the Select Committee, Freeman recounted how she had received “hundreds of racist, threatening, horrible calls and messages” and that now “[t]here is nowhere I feel safe—nowhere.” 375 But it’s not just a sense of security that the President and his followers took from Freeman. She told the Select Committee that she also lost her name and reputation:
My name is Ruby Freeman. I’ve always believed it when God says that he’ll make your name great, but this is not the way it was supposed to be. I could have never imagined the events that followed the Presidential election in 2020. For my entire professional life, I was Lady Ruby. My community in Georgia where I was born and lived my whole life knew me as Lady Ruby . . . . Now I won’t even introduce myself by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about who’s listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me. I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation.
I’ve lost my sense of security—all because a group of people, starting with Number 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.376
:{:{Freeman’s sense of dread is well-founded. According to Federal prosecutors, a member of the Oath Keepers militia convicted of multiple offenses for his role in the January 6th insurrection had a document in his residence with the words “DEATH LIST” written across the top.377}:
His death list contained just two names: Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.}:
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Kanye West Associate Pressured Poll Worker to Confess to Voter Fraud - Rolling Stone
no lnx
"You Are a Loose End … That Needs to Tidy Up.’ Kanye West Associate Accused of Pressuring Election Worker to Confess to Voter Fraud
Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for R. Kelly, allegedly warned Ruby Freeman that if she did not confess to voter fraud allegations, she would be arrested
By BRENNA EHRLICH
MIAMI, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 02: Trevian Kutti is seen wearing a Balmain top and white shirt dress on December 02, 2021 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images)MIAMI,
Trevian Kutti reportedly pressured a 62-year-old Georgia election worker to confess to voter fraud allegations.
Ex-R. Kelly publicist and current Kanye West associate Trevian Kutti reportedly pressured a 62-year-old Georgia election worker to confess to voter fraud allegations weeks after the 2020 presidential election, according to Reuters.
Kutti allegedly visited the home of Ruby Freeman on Jan. 4, 2021 and offered the woman help in the wake of death threats she said was receiving after being targeted by both Trump and a far-right website trumpeting allegations that Freeman and her daughter used suitcases of fake Biden ballots to help secure his victory. Those ballots were proven to be legit.
The pair went on to sue The Gateway Pundit for defamation earlier this month. The suit alleges that the publication’s stories “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.”
[RELATED STORIES
R. Kelly Sues Brooklyn Prison for Placing Him on Suicide Watch After 30-Year Sentence
Secret Service Has Been Chattering for a Year About Trump's Jan. 6 Capitol Tantrum: Report]
When Kutti — along with an unidentified male — showed up at Freeman’s door, the older woman was already fearful of strangers, so she called the police to assist with the conversation, during which Kutti said she was visiting under the auspices of a “high-profile individual” who warned that if Freeman did not confess to voter fraud allegations, she would be arrested after 48 hours.
Kutti no longer appears to officially be a member of West’s PR team, although the rapper is a long-time friend and supporter of Trump and ran for president in 2020 as well. A rep for West did not immediately reply to request for comment. Attempts to reach Kutti were not immediately successful, but in a statement, Kutti said, “I demand interested parties obtain and release the unedited version of the body cam footage in its entirety.”
Police bodycam video recorded on Jan. 4, 2021, shows Trevian Kutti, a publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West, telling a Georgia election worker who former President Trump falsely accused of manipulating votes that she was in imminent danger https://t.co/AeF1I18mdJ pic.twitter.com/ott7ohVQnI
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2021
The women discussed the situation further at the police station, on an officer’s suggestion, and via bodycam footage, Kutti can be heard saying: “I cannot say what specifically will take place… I just know that it will disrupt your freedom… and the freedom of one or more of your family members. … You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.” Kutti then put a man called “Harrison Ford” on speakerphone who said he could offer Freeman protection. Ford was not, perhaps unsurprisingly, the actor of Indiana Jones fame. The man told Freeman if she confessed to voter fraud, he would offer her legal protection; if she declined, she would go to jail.
Freeman was not sold on the man’s words and proclaimed “the devil is a liar” before calling for the officer’s aid. Later, trouble did befall Freeman, but not from the government. According to Freeman and her daughter’s lawsuit, the FBI called her on Jan. 5, warning her to leave her home because it was not safe. On Jan 6., the same day insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, Trump supporters also surrounded Freeman’s house.
In This Article: Donald Trump, Kanye West, R. Kelly
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newsweek
kanye West Publicist Said 'Harrison Ford' Would Help Election Official if She Admitted Fraud
BY JUSTIN KLAWANS ON 12/10/21
Kanye West's publicist allegedly told a Georgia election official that she would get "Harrison Ford" to help her stay safe if she admitted to committing fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
The conversation occurred in the weeks after the election between the publicist, Chicago-based Trevian Kutti, and 62-year-old Ruby Freeman regarding Freeman's actions as a temporary election worker.
Freeman had made headlines in December 2020 when former President Donald Trump falsely accused her of counting fake mail-in ballots from mysterious suitcases. In reality, the suitcases were standard ballot holding containers, and that the votes were all legitimate.
Forensic audits, including some from former Trump officials, have continued to find no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Freeman stated that she called 911 after Kutti showed up at her suburban Atlanta house in January 2021, claiming that she was sent by an unnamed "high-profile individual." Kutti then told Freeman that she had two days to confess to election fraud or she would be sent to jail.
The back-and-forth encounter eventually led to the women agreeing to have a conversation at the police station. Police bodycam footage obtained by Reuters captured a portion of their talk.
Kutti can be heard telling Freeman that she "didn't want to frighten you, but we had to find you within this timeframe."
After this exchange, Kutti appears to allude to Freeman and her family being in danger if she did not confess to voter fraud. However, Kutti added that she did have a way to ensure Freeman's safety.
"We have put in placement a way to move you, to secure you...I cannot say specifically what will take place," Kutti can be heard saying.
Kanye West Oval Office
A publicist for Kanye West reportedly told an election official that she would get 'Harrison Ford' to help her as long as she confessed to voter fraud which she did not partake in. Here, West can be seen in the Oval Office with former President Donald Trump.
SAUL LOEB/GETTY]
"I would like to connect now on the phone, Harrison Ford, who will be taking this situation to a detailed level for you," she continues, seemingly referring to the famous Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor. She also told Freeman that she works with "some of the biggest names in the industry."
However, as the conversation continues, Kutti clarifies that the Harrison Ford in question was not the Hollywood star, but rather "a Black progressive crisis manager, with very high level, with authoritative powers to get you protection that you need."
The phone conversation with Ford was not captured on bodycam footage, but Freeman stated that Ford and Kutti attempted for an hour to get her to confess to voter fraud, although they were unsuccessful.
Additional interactions included Kutti calling Freeman a "loose end for a party that needs to tidy up," and telling her that she would go to jail if she didn't reveal all of her information.
Kutti's online profile states that she started working for Kanye West in 2018. West is a known supporter of former President Trump and famously met with him in the Oval Office. West also ran for president in 2020 on the ticket for his own party, called The Birthday Party.
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distractify
A Publicist Reportedly Close to Kanye West Needs Her Own Publicist After a Political Scandal
Jamie Lerner - Author
DEC. 13 2021,
Just when we thought we were already past the 2020 election, news of Trump supporters refusing to let go of the results is still making the rounds. Recently, reports surfaced about an associate of Kanye West, Trevian Kutti, attempting to manipulate a poll worker into admitting false guilt of election fraud.
In the reports, Trevian Kutti is named as Kanye West’s publicist, but further information reveals that Kutti may not be as closely linked to West as suspected.
Many media reports associate Trevian Kutti with Kanye West, aka “Ye.”
While Kutti’s relationship with West remains unclear, it’s confirmed that she did work for R. Kelly up until 2018. On her LinkedIn, she’s listed as the Director of “TrevianWorldwide." She also serves as a publicist to boxing champion Terence Crawford and atelier Krikor Jabotian.
Until recently, her bio also stated that she was “secured as publicist to Kanye West” in 2018and “serves as West’s Director of Operations.”
Regardless of whether she currently works for West, Kutti has been linked to him as a confidante. But since Reuters published their report of Kutti’s inappropriate and uncalled-for actions toward Freeman, a different publicist on West’s team confirmed that Kutti was not “associated” with West when she went to visit Freeman.
Kanye West’s associate, Trevian Kutti, threatened and tried to manipulate poll worker Ruby Freeman.
On Jan. 4, two days before the events of the Jan. 6 protest, Kutti flew to Atlanta to meet with Ruby Freeman. Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, who also worked the polls during the 2020 election, were publicly accused by Rudy Giuliani of “stealing votes” and “passing out dope.”
However, federal officials concluded that the video allegedly showing this only showed normal ballot counting. But that didn’t stop Trump’s supporters from threatening and harrassing the mother-daughter duo.
Kutti showed up at Freeman’s door and claimed that she was sent by an undisclosed “high-profile individual” to help Freeman. According to Kutti, Freeman was “in danger” because unknown people would be coming to hurt her in “48 hours.” Frightened by Kutti’s claims, Freeman called 911 to make sure that law enforcement could assist in the situation.
The police recommended that Kutti and Freeman discuss the matter at the police station, where the conversation was recorded by a body cam. Throughout their hour-long discussion, Kutti offered legal assistance if Freeman would admit to tampering with the election, threatening Freeman by claiming she’d go to jail if she did not admit to guilt.
Trevian Kutti spoke out against the media’s depiction of what happened with Freeman.
Despite what now seems to be a scam engineered to try to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election, Kutti was correct about people showing up at Freeman’s house.
The FBI advised Freeman to leave her house, and 48 hours later, Trump supporters swarmed her property with bullhorns. Freeman and her daughter have since sued Gateway Pundit for defamation.
SOURCE: INSTAGRAM
While we don’t know how closely Kutti is tied to Kanye West, she recently shared a post supporting his bid for Creative Director of Louis Vuitton.
In addition, Kutti claims that Reuters and the media have completely missed the mark on what actually happened. As more details emerge, the full story may become clearer.
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A reminder that Lady Ruby's ordeal included Kanye's publicist threatening her (dailykos.com)
no lnx twt
a reminder that Lady Ruby's ordeal included Kanye's publicist threatening her
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Tuesday June 21, 2022
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Ruby Freeman, a temp election worker, received a threatening text message that said 'We know where you live, we coming to get you."
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We’re reminded in the Select Committee hearings of the extent of the hate and harassment campaign waged by trumpists. Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman were election workers targeted by Trump and trumpists in the pre-1/6 period after the 2020 election.
A publicist for Kanye West pressured a Georgia election worker to confess to unfounded election fraud claims.
Trevian Kutti paid a visit to Ruby Freeman, warning that she'd be arrested in 48 hours if she didn't.
Bodycam footage obtained by Reuters shows Kutti offering to "move" and "secure" Freeman.
ATLANTA, Dec 10 — Weeks after the 2020 election, a Chicago publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West traveled to the suburban home of Ruby Freeman, a frightened Georgia election worker who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes. The publicist knocked on the door and offered to help.
The visitor, Trevian Kutti, gave her name but didn’t say she worked for West, a longtime billionaire friend of Trump. She said she was sent by a “high-profile individual,” whom she didn’t identify, to give Freeman an urgent message: confess to Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, or people would come to her home in 48 hours, and she’d go to jail.
www.nbcnews.com/…
(CNN)
Investigators probing efforts to meddle with the 2020 election results in Georgia have sought testimony from a former publicist to R. Kelly and Kanye West who allegedly pressured a local election worker, according to court documents obtained by CNN.
The publicist, Trevian Kutti, made headlines last year when Reuters reported that Kutti had pressed a Georgia election worker to confess to Donald Trump's baseless voter fraud claims or face dire consequences. Kutti told the election worker she was a "crisis manager and was sent from a high-profile individual," according to a police report included in the court filing.
220613175628-trevian-kutti-screengrab-file-010421-exlarge-1691.jpg
The heart of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' probe has focused on attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the state's 2020 election results. But the interest in Kutti is an indication of the investigation's sprawling nature. Prior to seating a special grand jury in May, Willis' team had already spoken to more than 50 witnesses and planned to subpoena dozens of others, a source familiar with the probe told CNN.
A special grand jury could hear from Kutti and a number of other witnesses as early as this week. Several current and former officials in the Georgia secretary of state's office have been subpoenaed to testify. Among them: former investigator Frances Watson, who Trump called in December 2020, telling her she would be "praised" for finding fraud. Gabe Sterling, the chief operating officer, who pleaded with Trump to denounce the harassment of election officials and their families, is also expected to testify.
www.cnn.com/...
Moss & Freeman are a mother-daughter duo who processed ballots in Fulton County, GA.
They were accused of many crimes, like unloading "suitcases" of fake Biden ballots, double-counting ballots, and tampering w/ voting machines.
The "crime of the century," Giuliani claimed. 2/
These accusations, echoed by Trump himself, turned Moss and Freeman's lives inside out.
They received racist and violent threats, their careers suffered, and they feared for their safety.
Ruby Freeman had to flee her home for two months, she testified. See below... 3/
Image
Moss and Freeman became just the latest private citizens to become victims of viral, harmful conspiracy theories related to politics and elections.
So, what could they do to clear their names?
They sued @OANN, Rudy Giuliani, and several others. 4/
Complaint - Freeman & Moss v. OAN et al. - Protect Democracy
Here's where we get to the intriguing backstory I mentioned at the start of this thread.
Seated behind Shaye Moss and next to Ruby Freeman at today's @January6thCmte hearing were two of their lawyers, Mike Gottlieb & Meryl Governski.
(They're to the left of Ruby in the red.) 5/
Image
So why do I mention these two lawyers?
For nearly six years, Gottlieb & Governski have been developing a playbook for how the law can combat viral conspiracy theories and defend victims.
Stop the Steal 1.0?✅
Pizzagate?✅
Seth Rich's brother?✅
6/
For years I've followed Gottlieb and Governski's work — and the work of the lawyers they team up with — as part of my book reporting about the Seth Rich saga.
They're on the leading edge of this work. And they've gotten results time and again. 7/ rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
These lawyers would be the first to tell you that today belongs to Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman.
You really should watch their testimony if you haven't:
However, if you want to know the inside story of how a small band of lawyers fought viral lies... 8/
...well, I've got a book for you.
I spent years watching Gottlieb, Governski, and their colleagues figure out how to fight for truth and facts in this truth-challenged era of ours.
It's in my upcoming book. Check it out — and thanks for following along.
A Death on W Street
Post-script: If you want to read more about these lawyers' work on behalf of Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman partnering with @protctdemocracy, there's a wealth of information here:
Fighting Defamation Aimed at Election Workers - Protect Democracy
==
1 22 an
[media crit]
Donald Trump went into the 2020 election with some of the worst approval ratings on record for a sitting president. He made virtually no effort to appeal to those who didn’t vote for him. How was he able to remain standing, and how did he even potentially have a chance at a second term even if he lost the popular vote? One big reason is that he and his acolytes had convinced their base that the media can’t be trusted.
As we know by now, whenever the media aired even mildly critical coverage of Trump or those who were supposedly helping him make America great again, the response on the right was some variation of “(noun) (verb) fake news!” Indeed, it’s almost an article of faith among the Republican base that the media can’t be trusted.
If your news diet consists of the likes of Fox News, Newsmax, right-wing social media, and Christian conservative outlets, you probably think that when the mainstream media isn’t making things up, it’s crossing lines that should never be crossed in order. But there’s one problem—with few exceptions, it’s right-wing media that engages in that very behavior. And while some of those elements are finally answering for the worst of their sins, others are long overdue for a dose of accountability.
Contrary to what Trump and his diehards would have us think, whenever mainstream media outlets make a mistake, those mistakes are usually corrected fairly quickly once caught.A case in point was a 2017 editorial in *The New York Times* that held 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin partly responsible for a grisly 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. The Old Grey Lady’s editorial board claimed that just days before the shooting, Palin’s political action committee circulated a map that placed stylized crosshairs on the districts of 19 Democratic House members. The implication was clear—that map was a big reason why one of those lawmakers, then-Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, nearly died that day.
That claim was slammed on all sides of the aisle, prompting the Times to partly retract the editorial within five hours of it going online. All of the inaccurate information was retracted within two days.Despite this, Palin sued the Times for defamation. As near as can be determined, Palin is suing because she didn’t just want the Times to retract, but to grovel. The suit was due to go to trial in late January, but was pushed back to early February after the rabidly anti-vaccine Palin caught COVID-19.
Palin faces tough sledding under current precedent for libel and defamation suits. As a public figure, she would have to prove that when the editorial board greenlighted the initial version of the editorial, it did so acting with actual malice. That is, Palin would have to convince a jury that the editorial board either knew the story was false or published it with reckless disregard for whether it was true or false. Remember, the statements at issue were retracted in almost no time at all in modern media terms. Her onlychance of winning is to take this case all the way to the Supreme Court in hopes of making it easier for public figures to win libel suits.
As it currently stands, Palin’s suit betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how media outlets with actual standards work. Indeed, the Times’ quick retraction stands in marked contrast to the behavior of celebrity gossip blog Gawker. In March 2016, Gawker was effectively forced out of business when it was ordered tocough up $140 million in damages to pro wrestler Hulk Hogan for posting a clip of a sex tape of Hogan. While its sister sites (such as sports culture blog Deadspin, tech blog Gizmodo, and feminist blog Jezebel) were sold to Univision at a bankruptcy auction, Gawker itself wasshut down that August. Ultimately, Gawker settled with Hogan for $31 million that November.
A number of observers slammed the verdict for itspotential chilling effect on freedom of the press, especially after billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thielrevealed that he had bankrolled the suit. Thiel openly admitted that he wanted to punish Gawker after its now-defunct tech gossip sister, Valleywag, outed him as gay in 2007. Indeed, in a post-mortem about Gawker on its last day of business, NPR media reporter David Folkenflikobserved that Thiel’s involvement in Hogan’s suit against Gawker portended “ugly implications for press freedom in light of adversaries with nearly infinite resources.”
At its peak in 2015, Gawker hadover 23 million visits per month, making it one of the most visited sites in the world. With that level of popularity, it’s only fair to wonder—why was no one willing to ride to Gawker’s rescue? Granted, potential buyers might have beenskittish about having to deal with the massive legal headache of a lawsuit bankrolled by a billionaire. But surely someone with the wherewithal to withstand Thiel’s resources would have rescued Gawker solely on the principle of defending freedom of the press, right?
By then, however, Gawker had lost a lot of goodwill as a result of two instances where its disregard for standards dating back to the days of typewriters and leaflets was exposed for all to see. In 2015, Gawker ran an article that claimed Conde Nast Chief Financial Officer David Geithner, the brother of President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was being extorted by a gay porn star and male escort. As the story goes, when Geithner reneged on a deal to meet up with the porn star on a trip to Chicago, the escort went to Gawker and offered to tell all. He supplied copies of text exchanges between himself and Geithner and a selfie that Geithner supposedly sent him.
When the story went live, the criticism came inhard,fast, and fromall directions.Most of the detractors argued that it served no public interest to even imply that Geithner was gay. For example, the University of Minnesota’s Jane Kirtley, a media law expert, told The Daily Beast that absent evidence that Geithner gave “preferential treatment to people in the hiring process” or was guilty of sexual harassment, she was “really hard-pressed” to see a legitimate reason for running the story.
But this story had a more fundamental problem than lack of public interest. It was sourced almost entirely from a guy who was extorting Geithner. Specifically, the bulk of the story came from texts provided to Gawker staff writer Jordan Sargent. Despite this, according to Mother Jones, Gawker took onlyone working day to research, vet, and fact-check the story before it went live.
A number of media experts found the rapid turnaround time for this story extremely problematic. Ken Paulson, former editor-in-chief of USA Today and current president of the First Amendment Center, told Mother Jones that stories that could even potentially wreck someone’s reputation “are typically vetted over a longer period.” Over that time, Paulson added, details could come up that “could give you pause about publishing.” First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams was interviewed in the same article, saying that when there is evidence of blackmail or extortion, it ought to be “a blinking yellow light, or even a blinking red light” to thoroughly vet it before you even consider publishing it.
Gawker’s defense, at the time, seemed to be that the story was true and nothing else mattered. In response to withering criticism—including from Gawker’s own readers—Natasha Vargas-Cooper of Jezebel harrumphed in a since-deleted tweet that in her mind, “if it’s true, you publish.”
The fact that Gawker seemed to justify this story simply because it was true appeared especially tone-deaf a mere four years after the News of the World wasforced out of existence due to rampant phone-hacking. Indeed, Gawker’s ethos appeared little different from that of WikiLeaks. By then, we’d known since at least 2010 that Julian Assange’s idea of transparency includedreleasing unredacted Social Security numbers—and dismissing any potential harm as “collateral damage.”
A mere 18 hours after the story went live, Gawker Media’s six-member managing partnershipvoted to remove it over thefurious objections of Gawker’s editorial staff. But when Gawker founder and CEO Nick Denton deliveredthe official explanation for removing the post, he proved that he still didn’t get it.
Denton said that the story about Geithner was “true and well reported,” which would have been enough to justify running it “in the early days of the Internet.” However, he said, “Gawker is no longer the insolent blog that began in 2003,” and this meant that potential stories “have to be true and interesting” in order to pass editorial muster. Denton went further in a memo to Gawker’s editorial team, saying that he was “ashamed” to have his name attached to the story, even if “we were within our legal right to publish.”
There are times when what was considered good reporting years ago is patently unacceptable now. For instance, the relentless coverage of Britney Spears in the early 2000swould never be tolerated today given greater awareness about mental health and sexism. But this didn’t even come close to being one of those times. By suggesting that an article that essentially amounted to aiding and abetting extortion would be even remotely acceptable in 2003, Denton made his statement announcing the article’s deletion amount to a non-apology apology. It also casts a pall on the good that Gawker actually did—like turning the hot lights on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s substance abuse, or revealing that Bill O’Reilly used his influence to start an investigation of his ex-wife’s boyfriend.
Soon after the furor over the Geithner article died down, it became even clearer just how serious Gawker’s cultural problem was. In July 2015, Vanity Fair writer Richard Lawsontweeted a mea culpa about his days at Gawker. He admitted that he’d written, on orders from his boss, “baseless posts accusing an actor of raping an ex-boyfriend.” That actor wasJames Franco.
From 2008 to around 2014, Gawker churned out a series of articles that attempted to out Franco. The first of these articles, penned by Lawson, was a follow-up to ablind item in the New York Postin which an unidentified actor reportedly broke into his former boyfriend’s apartment and violently raped him. Inhis article, Lawson mused that the three likely suspects were Will Smith, Christian Bale—and Franco.
Soon afterward, Lawsonwrote another article suggesting that based on Gawker commenters’ sentiment, “the people” felt Franco was a gay rapist. He then followed that up witha third article suggesting that the “gay rapist” Franco had actually been mentioned by the person who tipped off the Post about the supposed violent attack. If there is any difference between that article and Trump’s penchant for spewing baseless garbage that’s supposedly based on what “many people are saying,” I don’t see it.
Later, other Gawker writerspenned articles suggesting that Franco was gay, based on the thinnest reeds of evidence. According to The Daily Beast, this was part of Gawker’s “creepy obsession with outing closeted men.” Granted, Franco is no angel. In 2021, he not only settled a lawsuit alleging that he harassed several students at the acting school he ran from 2014 to 2017, but admitted sleeping with some of his students.
Seen in this light, it’s no wonder that it took more than six years and at least one false start for Gawker to be revived. It returned in the summer of 2021 as a sister publication to women’s magazine Bustle, who bought Gawker’s remains in 2019. One would have thought that given Gawker’s popularity, it would have been revived sooner. However, NPR’s Folkenflik noted that when Univision bought Gawker’s sister sites, it concluded that Gawker itself was “too toxic to touch.”
Given how long it took for Gawker to be revived, any potential white knights must have reached the same conclusion. Who would want to take on an organization that not only believed there was a time where extortion was at all acceptable, but had no qualms about running libel?
Indeed, even as I write this, the articles libeling Franco are still available on Gawker’s website. That contrasts sharply with how the Times handled the initial version of its editorial attack on Palin. Contrary to what she and her fellow deplorables would have us believe, mainstream media outlets have standards—and those that lack standards get culled.
The same, however, can’t be said for some mainstays of right-wing media. For instance, when former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore made a bid for the U.S. Senateseat that came open when Jeff Sessions was tapped as Trump’s attorney general, Breitbart led a relentless smear campaign against the women who claimed Moore sexually assaulted them or pursued improper relationships with them. And it did so even though its editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow,believed at least one of the accusers was credible.
Marlow made this shocking assertion in an interview with CNN’s Oliver Darcy in December 2017, a month after Moore’s narrow loss to Democrat Doug Jones. He revealed that he believed that Moore’s initial accuser, Leigh Corfman, had “a lot of credibility.” Corfman, you may recall, claimed Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 14.
By admitting that he believed Moore’s accusers were credible even as Breitbart was smearing them, Marlow effectively put big, fat asterisks by every story Breitbart ran about the election. Victim shaming is bad enough, but doing so when you have reason to believe a victim is telling the truth is absolutely heinous. It’s even more so considering that Marlow admitted Breitbart went all-in for Moore to protect Trump.
Project Veritas also joined in on this disgraceful campaign. Its ringleader, James O’Keefe, even went as far as having one of his minions, Jaime Phillips, try to plant a bogus story in The Washington Postclaiming that Moore had impregnated her.But that story came apart when the Post did some actual journalism and discovered Phillips’ story had more red flags than a lifetime of Alabama football games. Most damningly, Phillips had created a GoFundMe page boasting about her goal to join “the conservative media movement” in exposing “the liberal MSM.”
To pile obscenity on top of insult, O’Keefe revealed in December 2017 that he believed Moore’s accusers were credible. And yet, he felt compelled to smear them because—wait for it—he felt their credibility was “not my subject matter,” and his real goal was exposing “bias in the media.” So the man whose stock in trade is targeting journalists for supposed bias admitted that doing so was so important that he felt compelled to shame victims that he believed were credible. Let that sink in.
To give you an idea how outrageous Breitbart and Project Veritas’ behavior was here, imagine if every news outlet that passed on the prospect of exposing Harvey Weinstein’s depravities had reason to believe Weinstein’s accusers were credible—and yet ran stories effectively calling them liars. It makes Palin’s squawking about theTimes’ failure to basically grovel before her look hypocritical as all hell.
Fortunately, at least two other members of the deplorable fever swamp are facing long-overdue accountability. Take InfoWars, for instance. Even after Alex Jones was kicked off mainstream social media and blackballed from smartphone app stores, it looked like he was going to continue his years-long promotion of conspiracy theories and hate speech—albeit with a much reduced audience.
But what may have been the beginning of the end for Jones came in 2018, not long after Facebook and YouTube gave him the boot. Several families of Sandy Hook victims, along with an FBI agent who responded to the shooting, sued Jones for defamation. Specifically, they wanted Jones held to account for his numerous claims that the Sandy Hook victims and survivors were “crisis actors.” These claims have resulted in the survivors being relentlessly harassed and trolled. The family of Noah Pozner, for instance, has had to move numerous times due to the harassment, and now live under high security in an undisclosed location. They have never been able to visit their son’s grave.
A series of legal reversals for Jones and InfoWars culminated in the fall of 2021. That September, a Texas judge issued three default judgments against Jones and InfoWars in two defamation suits filed by Sandy Hook families. The judge had lost patience with Jones’ refusal to turn over documents, and found it egregious enough to conclude that Jones had already lost. In November, a Connecticut judge issued a default judgment in a suit filed against Jones in another lawsuit. While damages will be determined at trial later this year, they are likely to add up to hundreds of millions of dollars—in all likelihood, enough to put InfoWars out of business.
Another fixture of the deplorable fever swamp, Gateway Pundit, may also face extinction after beingsued for orchestrating a vicious trolling campaign that falsely accused Georgia election workers of stealing their state for Joe Biden. The two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, claim that Gateway Pundit started a flood of disinformation that reached all the way to Trump, who attacked Freeman by name in his now-infamous attempt to shake down Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Dozens of bogus stories about Freeman and Moss resulted in death threats, doxing, and kidnapping attempts, among other things. Rather than apologize, Gateway Pundit actually tried to raise money off the lawsuit, netting over $81,000.If there is any justice, though, that fundraising effort will be a futile exercise. Gateway Pundit and its impresarios, the Hoft brothers, ought to get a very hard lesson on why private citizens only need to prove negligence in order to win libel suits.
The Times moves in almost no time at all by current media standards to retract claims about Palin—and yet, Breitbart, Project Veritas, and Gateway Pundit refuse to even attempt to apologize for far worse. What’s wrong with this picture?
The answer to that question is simpler than you may think. For all the caterwauling we hear from the right about the media not having any standards, we have seen instance after instance where the media has shown it actually does. Moreover, whenever elements of the mainstream press show they don’t have standards, they are weeded out. The demise of Gawker is a stark example of what happens when you catapult your way into the mainstream, only to show you have little regard for basic standards of decency.
If we are to remove the tinder from our politics, we must subject the media to the same level of accountability that Gawker faced, and what InfoWars is more than likely to face. As Gawker learned in 2016, that standard ought to apply regardless of political shade. But if Palin and other right-wingers are willing to take off their blinders, they would see that their own side of the media divide is long overdue for a cleaning.
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