There’s a sentence in a lawsuit filed in ºüÀêÊÓƵ two years ago that says a lot about indictments issued this week in Georgia against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his alleged co-conspirators.
“The intentional dissemination of known falsehoods aimed at sowing doubt about the integrity of our elections threatens our very ability to function as a democracy.â€
That sentence is in the petition filed by ºüÀêÊÓƵ law firm Dowd Bennett on behalf of two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye†Moss, over lies told about them by The Gateway Pundit. The online propaganda rag was founded by ºüÀêÊÓƵan Jim Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, who lives in Florida.
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The lawsuit, first filed in December 2021, makes a point about Trump’s Big Lie and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election that is now clearer than ever in the fourth indictment issued against the ex-president: Trump didn’t act alone.
The first of the 18 names listed below Trump’s on the in Fulton County is none other than Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, who also faces a lawsuit from Freeman and Moss for the damage his lies caused them.
In that lawsuit, Giuliani filed an amazing document recently. He in effect admitted to the lies, a version of which he also told a legislative committee in Missouri when he was traveling the country rallying support for the Big Lie. When he testified in Missouri, Giuliani signed a witness form agreeing to tell the truth, under the threat of criminal charges for perjury.
He lied anyway.
And now, he’s paying the price, as are many of Trump’s other hangers-on, from John Eastman to Sidney Powell to Mark Meadows.
The lies haven’t ended, even as the indictments pile up. Here’s what was on The Gateway Pundit’s website the morning after the Georgia indictment:
“BREAKING: Trump Announces Press Conference Next Week Where He Will Reveal Fraud in Georgia Election.â€
The site also suggested that the wife of the judge in the case “likes†former President Barack Obama on Facebook, and that the indictments amount to “pure communism.â€
It’s pure trash, but it continues to cause massive damage to American democracy, in part because the Hofts have figured out how to monetize the trash. And they’ve done that in part with the help of ºüÀêÊÓƵ-based Decide Technologies, formerly known as LockerDome, a company that to the Hofts through online advertising.
“Democracy dies in darkness,†the slogan adopted by , seems to apply here. But through the lawsuits filed by the Georgia election workers, and now the indictments issued by the grand jury there, light is being shed on the conspiracy to upend American democracy and the expanding list of grifters who were involved.
“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,†reads the Georgia grand jury indictment. “That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.â€
It took more than one man to create the Jan. 6 insurrection and the ongoing attacks on American democracy. Those people are facing the legal consequences of their actions.
Now the real action moves to the courts, in New York and Washington, D.C., and Georgia and Florida, and, yes, in Missouri, where judges and juries will stand in judgment over the purveyors of the Big Lie.
As historic as it is that a former American president is facing multiple charges in several jurisdictions, it’s perhaps even more important that those who enabled him pay the price for their misdeeds.
That’s how American democracy returns to a functioning state.