Raw Story

A new filing in a defamation lawsuit filed by Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss against the conspiracy theory website Gateway Pundit reveals that workers at the site feared for their credibility, reported The Guardian — and their own attorney warned them that the source for their claims was not to be trusted.

The site's founder, Jim Hoft, has earned the nickname "The Dumbest Man on the Internet" for years of strange and sloppy claims. Despite this, former President Donald Trump has been reported to be an avid reader of the site.

"Attorneys for Freeman and Moss ... said in their filing that John Burns, a lawyer for Gateway Pundit, had warned the site about relying on Kevin Moncla, a source in Georgia who fed the site information on Freeman and Moss, including their non-public personnel files, according to the filing," said the report.

"'Moncla is a known fabricator. I wouldn’t touch/publish anything he produces,” Burns reportedly wrote, while also calling Moncla “a g-------d fraud."

ALSO READ: Read this powerful GOP senator’s pay-to-play 'benefits package' for lobbyists

As if that weren't enough, Freeman and Moss’s attorneys also unearthed messages from Moncla said in which he said of their clients, "I will help you nail these b----s."

According to the report, Moncla was charged with voyeurism and ordered to pay $3.25 million after filming guests in the bathroom at his house.

Earlier this week, Gateway Pundit filed for bankruptcy amid the litigation against them.

Moss and Freeman, who counted ballots in Atlanta in 2020, have become a focus of numerous MAGA conspiracy theories, spread in part by Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani, who claimed that they were stuffing ballots — based in part on a supposed "flash drive" one passed to the other that turned out to be a ginger mint. Giuliani was found liable for $148 million in a defamation default judgment for his role in these claims.

In addition to the defamation cases, efforts to harass the two workers form part of the election racketeering case against Trump's allies in Fulton County.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) admitted that "nobody" wanted the drama she was creating by trying to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) — but she's doing it anyway.

Following a press conference Wednesday where Greene vowed to trigger a "motion to vacate" the Speaker's chair next week, she spoke to conservative podcaster Steve Bannon.

"And we have Mike Johnson going in there and basically giving a sloppy kiss to [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries and Jeffries taking him in with a great big hug and them holding and sharing the speaker's gavel together," Greene complained. "That's what's wrong for America."

"Steve, nobody wants this drama right now, but it's Mike Johnson that has completely brought it on all of us," she continued.

"Yeah, this is inconvenient. Yeah, this is something I don't want to have to do with right now. Yeah, this is something that our conference shouldn't have to go through."

ALSO READ: DeJoy faces pain over postal 'crime wave’

Greene insisted she did not run for Congress to "go along and get along."

"I didn't come up here to Washington to go along and get along and put it in cruise control and just have an easy job, cushy job up here in Washington while America burns down to the ground and gets taken over by George Soros and all of his protests in Hamas and fully open borders and we're being invaded and the economy falls apart and our dollar loses value and inflation continues to skyrocket and our kids have no hope for a future," she ranted.

"I'm sorry, I'm not here to participate in the uniparty, but I can't wait to deliver a vote for American voters next week so they can have a fully transparent list of everybody here in Congress that believes in the uniparty and has a membership card in the uniparty," Greene added.

"It's a coming out party, Steve, and I'm ready to deliver it."

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.

The appeals court has denied Donald Trump's request to have Justice Juan Merchan recused from the Manhattan hush money trial, Law360's Stewart Bishop reported Tuesday morning.

Trump has also demanded that the trial be paused because he is awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court on his "presidential immunity" claims. That too was denied.

Trump faces 34 felony counts in Manhattan surrounding a so-called hush money agreement with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say he paid her to keep quiet about a sexual relationship they had before the 2016 election.

ALSO READ: Mike Pence: latest presidential campaign deadbeat?

Trump claimed Merchan was biased against him because the judge's daughter works for Democratic campaigns.

Merchan asked a judicial ethics board to examine the issue last year, and it was ruled that everything was above board. Still, Trump appealed his refusal of recuse.

If fundraising or other means of getting cash falters, Donald Trump is close to running out of funds to pay his legal bills as his New York hush money criminal trial continues, according to a new report.

Trump is racking up significant legal bills as the trial, where he's accused of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult movie star Stormy Daniels, enters into its second week. He's also facing three other indictments that could result in trials beginning this year.

Newsweek reported that Trump has been paying his lawyers using the Save America PAC, which has doled out more than $62 million for legal fees since January 2023. At the end of March, the PAC had around $4 million in cash — after spending $5.4 million on legal bills in the previous month.

Also read: Judge slaps Trump with $9K in fines — and warns 'jail may be a necessary punishment'

Speaking to Newsweek, University of Nottingham political science professor Todd Landman said that while "it is not clear that he will run out of money," Trump will be paying "substantial legal fees" in the coming weeks.

"Trump is managing four legal cases at present, each of which incurs legal fees for preparation of his defense, filing motions, and in the case of the Manhattan trial, representing him at trial four days a week," he said.

"The Manhattan trial is expected to run for five to six weeks in total, which continues this week, where there will be more witnesses for the prosecution and a separate hearing on whether he has violated his gag order," Landman continued. The judge ruled Tuesday that violations had occurred, but has another meeting scheduled to look into extra accusations.

"He has retained multiple lawyers to defend him, which means that he will have to pay substantial legal fees. It is not clear that he will run out of money, as he has been successful in securing a number of large donations from supporters," Landman said.

"However, there are legal constraints on using some of his political organizations and thus [he] needs to keep campaign finance separate from personal legal defense spending. On top of his legal fees, he has outstanding civil judgments against him pending appeal."

Funneling so much cash to legal fees could also drastically effect Trump's campaign, said another University of Nottingham professor, Christopher Phelps.

"The key question is whether he can do so while also running an effective ground operation in the battleground states, which requires a lot of advertising and personnel," he said.

New York Judge Juan Merchan slapped former President Donald Trump with a $9,000 contempt of court fine on Tuesday for repeatedly violating the gag order in his Manhattan hush money trial to publicly attack witnesses and jurors — and warned him that a stay on Rikers Island could be in his future if he continues on his current path.

This led some commenters on social media to praise the judge — but many others urged him to stop showing so much restraint on Trump, who has already been fined multiple times for similar violations in his civil trials.

"BREAKING: Judge Merchan fines Trump for violating gag order 9 times," wrote political influencer Ed Krassenstein on X. "Trump has officially been held in contempt of court. But I'm sure that MAGA will claim that it's because the judge is biased and because Trump is being politically targeted, right? When will Republicans ever just say, 'Trump made a mistake?'"

"The $9,000 Trump has to pay for violating his gag order is good but isn’t going to stop him," wrote political podcaster "JoJoFromJerz." "I don’t see how he makes it through this trial without spending some time in the pokey."

ALSO READ: ‘Clear indication’: Dems accuse GOP congressional candidate of illegal super PAC ties

MSNBC political analyst Tim O'Brien had a sober assessment. "Trump will see Justice Merchan’s $9,000 fine for violating the gag order as a reasonable cost for the ability to continue attacking the judge, court and rule of law," he wrote. "It won’t stop him."

"If any of us violated a gag order so many times, we would be in custody," wrote legal expert and commentator John Collins.

Georgia State University constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis thinks this is an ominous sign for the former president.

"Judge Merchan makes plain by holding Donald Trump in contempt that the New York gag order is a blanket one covering any statements about witnesses, jurors, (or potential jurors earlier in the process)," he wrote.

"He has little room to run to the media: a danger zone for undisciplined Trump."

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has tried to build bridges between himself and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) since she first raised the threat to oust him as Speaker. However, Sunday, Greene renewed her vow to take him down.

After initially threatening to bounce Johnson from his gig as the leader of House Republicans, Greene backed off and insisted that Republican lawmakers go home and listen to their constituents about it. This was also after Donald Trump publicly backed the Speaker.

Now, it appears she is back on the warpath against the Louisiana conservative.

ALSO READ: ‘Fraudulent’: Trump tormentor Lincoln Project loses big money in cybertheft scheme

Greene on Sunday shared a report suggesting that Ukrainian leader Zelensky had announced "that Ukraine is working on a security agreement with the U.S. that will fix levels of support for the next 10 years."

"The $61 billion was just the beginning. The next two U.S. presidents won’t be able to switch it off," the individual stated.

In response, Greene claimed "Permanent funding for Ukraine is exactly what they want and Mike Johnson will give it to them."

"Peace is not an option for them because it doesn’t fit the government appropriations war business and economic model, which is vile and disgusting," she added. "They’re plan is keep funding the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and when that doesn’t work, after all the Ukrainian men have been slaughtered, next they will put American troops on the ground."

Then, she went off on Johnson.

"Johnson will do whatever Biden/Schumer want in order to keep the Speaker’s gavel in his hand, but he has completely sold out the Republican voters who gave us the majority," she said. "His days as Speaker are numbered."

Kentucky representative Thomas Massie also shared Greene's post on his own social media account Sunday.