On July 11, 2019, Gateway Pundit publisher Jim Hoft listened to the speech of US President Donald Trump at the “Social Media Summit” meeting held with famous conservative social media figures in the East Room of the White House in Washington, USA. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Reuters, December 3-This story has a blockbuster title: Two weeks after Democrat Joe Biden defeated then President Donald Trump by a narrow margin in the state, he discovered "numbers" in Madison, Wisconsin. Thousands of fake votes".

The false report from the far-right website Gateway Pundit drew attention to a set of initials-MLW-engraved on what it claimed to be "fake" ballots. Then a reader commented on the story and correctly identified MLW: Maribeth L. Witzel-Behl, Madison City Clerk, whose duties include managing elections.

Other commenters quickly called for the execution of Witzel-Behl. She found a post particularly disturbing. It recommended a specific bullet to kill her-the 7.62mm bullet of the AK-47 assault rifle.

Witzel-Behl was shocked by the threatening and angry calls pouring into her office. Contrary to the implication that the acronym in the story means that the ballot is fake, in fact, as a policy issue, she and her staff wrote her acronym on all absent ballots before providing it to voters .

According to Reuters' review of materials including emails, letters, and telephone information, Witzel-Bell is one of 25 election officials and staff members. Since last year’s election, more than 100 threats and hostile communications have been cited Gateway Pundit's remarks. As a comment posted on the website story.

This information is aimed at officials and staff in four jurisdictions that have repeatedly reported false or misleading Pundit reports on allegations of voter fraud: Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Fulton County, Georgia; and Arizona State of Maricopa County.

At least five officials, including Witzel-Behl, received threats that they considered serious enough to be reported to law enforcement. The targets included a municipal election director in Milwaukee and a Republican supervisor in Maricopa County. The targets also include Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, the mother and daughter who worked in Fulton County to count votes; Reuters detailed their ordeal this week.

After Gateway Pundit published a story about them on August 14, a commenter commented at the bottom of the article: "These two women are traitors to the country and should be hung around their necks until they die. "

Two other officials, a Fulton County election commissioner and another Maricopa County supervisor, accused Gateway Pundit of inciting the serious threats of violence they received because the website implicated these officials in unfounded election manipulation Allegations. These threats did not refer to the website by name.

Most of the 25 officials received harassment messages, which were less violent but tended to be intimidating, racist, or misogynistic. For example, many messages accuse officials of treason or demand that they be imprisoned.

The threats and harassment inspired by Gateway Pundit illustrate the central role of disinformation in the fear campaign launched by Trump supporters against American democratic frontline managers.

"Gateway Pundit reminded me of your betrayal of Wisconsin and the United States," said a threat sent via email to Milwaukee election director Claire Woodell-Voge. "I hope you know that your actions will have consequences. I know a lot about you. I will have to think about what happens next."

Harassment communications related to Gateway Pundit are part of more than 800 threats sent to election officials recorded by Reuters this year, including more than 100 threats, which legal experts say may meet the legal threshold for federal criminal prosecution. If this threat makes people fear impending violence or death, it will be regarded as a crime. However, the law enforcement agencies hardly held anyone accountable.

Of these 800 messages, more than 10% of harassers listed Gateway Pundit as the source of information that led them to lash out at election officials. No other media or social media platforms have been mentioned multiple times.

The FBI declined to comment on whether it is investigating any information inspired by Gateway Pundit, but said it "takes all threats of violence seriously." No one was arrested. The Ministry of Justice established a working group in June to address threats to election workers, but did not respond to requests for comment.

Gateway Pundit has become a major player in the ever-expanding far-right media arena, including television broadcasters One America News Network and Newsmax, as well as video sharing site BitChute and social media platforms Parler and Gab. Since the 2020 election, authority figures have ignited anger and helped expand the audience through reports, thereby supporting Trump's false stolen election narrative.

According to data from the Internet traffic intelligence service company Similarweb, in the weeks following Trump's November defeat, Pundit's network traffic in the United States was close to 50 million, up from about 15 million a year ago. Recently-from July to September-viewers average monthly visits to 33 million. This is almost twice the average number of 17 million visits to the MSNBC website during the same period. MSNBC is a cable news channel known for its left-leaning hosts.

Gateway Pundit describes itself as a publisher of news and commentary. It was launched as an opinion blog in 2004 and became one of Trump's most stubborn promoters in the 2016 presidential campaign. During the campaign, Trump often quoted or reposted Gateway Pundit's story. Once selected, he quickly granted the website White House press credentials.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The freedom of speech and freedom of the press provisions of the U.S. Constitution provide the news media—even those that publish false stories that incite threats—with extensive protection from any legal liability, especially criminal charges. The media may be sued for defamation, but for public officials, including many election workers and administrators, such cases are particularly difficult to win.

Officials have to prove not only the damage to their reputation, but also the "real malice." The standard was set by the U.S. Supreme Court and means that not only must the plaintiffs prove that they were harmed by publishing false information, but they must also prove that the publisher either knew that the information was false or "recklessly ignored the truth," said Syracuse University Roy Gutterman, professor of media law.

"Slander is difficult for everyone to win, but it is even harder for public figures like most plaintiffs," Gutman said.

Gateway Pundit is currently facing at least three defamation lawsuits, and these people claim that they face numerous threats after being slandered by false stories. The first two lawsuits did not involve public officials; the website disputed both, claiming that it did not violate the law and assumes no responsibility for threats of violence. The third one was submitted yesterday by Freeman and Moss, the election workers in Georgia. A lawyer for Gateway Pundit declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Pundit has faced some commercial counterattacks due to its false and inflammatory content. In September, when Google stopped advertising on the site, it lost a major source of income on the grounds that it published "obviously false" election stories. According to the analysis of the Anti-Digital Hate Center, which combats online extremism, in the past 10 months, Pundit has earned approximately $1.3 million in revenue from advertising through the Google AdSense program.

Pundit retains other advertisements, mainly "click bait" promotions carried out by advertising networks on behalf of hundreds of companies and products. The site is paid based on the number of ads clicked.

Reuters asked whether the five ad networks prominent on Gateway Pundit were concerned about their content. Two people, Jeeng and ZergNet, stated that they reviewed the site in response to Reuters' inquiries and decided to stop advertising on it. Two other companies, Revcontent LLC and MGID, said they are reconsidering their relationship with the site. The fifth, LockerDome, did not respond to a request for comment.

The owner and editor of Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, is a native of Iowa with a university degree in biology and no previous journalism background. Hoft wrote many articles with his twin brother Joe Hoft and six or so contributors. In 2016, after a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people, Hoff wrote a Brightbart news column claiming to be gay. Noting that the gunman sympathizes with radical Islamic groups, he believes that the best way to protect homosexuals from more attacks is to re-elect Trump because he will take a tough attitude towards extremists.

Jim Hoft did not respond to interview requests sent to him and his lawyer. Joe Hoft also did not comment.

"We never support any violence," Jim Hoft said in his testimony in the lawsuit in August. The lawsuit alleges that his website slandered and incited threats to a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, a manufacturer of voting equipment that often appears in Pundit reports. "We report to different people every day, and we always consider their safety."

Hoft is seeking reader support through several online fundraising activities on the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo. According to the website, these activities have raised more than $250,000 in funding so far. On the Pundit website, Hoft urges readers to show support by purchasing a subscription. "Gateway Pundit is fighting for survival," he said in the message.

"We are here for you, Claire"

The threat of Milwaukee election chairman Woodall-Vogg (Woodall-Vogg) was sent to her private e-mail address reserved for friends and family. Subject line: "Hello Marxist bitch."

A few days after the election, authorities began to target Woodall-Vogg when she notified the Wisconsin State Electoral Commission to inadvertently leave a flash drive for the city’s voting tabulator in the processing center on election night. She explained in a letter to the commissioner that the drive was recovered within a few minutes and was never left unattended. The county prosecutor reviewed the matter and found no evidence of tampering.

Gateway Pundit responded to an article with the headline: “The head of the election in Milwaukee lost the election flash drive on the morning of November 4, when the Democratic Party miraculously found 120,000 votes for Joe Biden.”

Woodall-Vogg began receiving angry emails almost immediately. With multiple audits and reviews confirming the results of Milwaukee, these news continue, which helped Biden win Wisconsin.

In late July, another authoritative headline triggered a new wave of intimidation: "Scoop: Undiscovered emails showing Milwaukee election executive Woodall-Vogg mocking election stealing on election night." Evidence: Woodall-Vogg and Ryan A joking email exchange between Chew, a staff member of The Elections Group, a non-profit organization that provides locals with free pre-election guidance on improving the 2020 voting process.

Soon after the final votes for Milwaukee were reported on the night of the election, Zhou wrote: "Damn, Claire, you have a talent for drama and provide the required security deposit at 3:00 AM. I bet you counted these votes at midnight. I just want the world to wait!" Woodall-Vogg replied, "Haha. I just want to wait and say I haven't fallen asleep for 24 hours."

Chew and Woodall-Vogg told Reuters that the exchange was an unfortunate but meaningless joke. Chew said that Woodall-Vogg stayed up late to add drama to be "ridiculous." "This absurdity is the essence of this joke," Zhou said.

Authorities described the transaction as evidence that Woodall-Vogg participated in a multi-state fraud to create a late night "drop" of Biden's votes. More than 70 angry messages appeared in Woodall-Vogg's inbox. Many people have quoted authority figures. Someone asked her to be executed. Someone asked her if she had private security. Some people left threatening voice mails. One said, "We are here to find you, Claire."

Woodall-Vogg left the town with his two children and worked remotely for 10 days. She submitted six threatening messages to the Milwaukee police. The department told Reuters that after the police determined that they could not be prosecuted under state or local laws, it had forwarded these communications to the FBI.

In the election office, safety glass and other protective measures are being added.

"The threats I really care about—threats against me and my family—not happened until the Gateway Pundit article," she said.

'Tick, tick, tick'

In June, Vernetta Nuriddin, a Democratic member of the Fulton County Election Commission in Georgia, was starting her summer vacation when her inbox was filled with two dozen malicious emails. One subject line: "Tick, tick, tick."

"Soon..." the email read.

Nuridin said she found the email "frightening", suggesting a bomb or other "imminent danger."

That morning, the email addresses of Nuriddin and other board members were published in a Gateway Pundit report that stated that they were named in an activist lawsuit seeking to review the county’s absentee ballots. The lawsuit was later dismissed.

Other media reported on the lawsuit a few days ago, but it wasn't until authority figures announced their email addresses that they started sending hostile messages to Nuriddin and other board members. Some messages specifically cited Gateway Pundit; others, including ticking emails, did not. Nuridin left the board at the end of her four-year term this summer, and she said that reports from authority figures often lead to news of "hope you are the worst person, they don't even know you."

Nuriddin submitted the tick to the Fulton County Police Department. Fulton’s head Wade Yates said it dropped the case after determining that the information did not constitute a “clear threat” of a crime under Georgia law.

Reuters identified the sender of the "Tick, Tick" threat: Brian Lohman of Jacksonville, Florida. In an interview reported by Reuters on November 9, nine people said they harassed or threatened election officials, and he was one of them.

Lohman told Reuters that he was not suggesting a bomb. He said he had read that Nuriddin was named in the Fulton County ballot lawsuit, which meant that time was running out before she "had to face a judge." He declined to say whether he got the news from the Gateway Pundit story - or Nuriddin's email address.

"Hanging or guillotine?"

After the 2020 presidential election, authorities published a series of reports alleging fraud by voters in Maricopa County, Arizona, including Phoenix, the state's largest city.

Many of these reports were false, including an article on May 9 stating that the county had deleted voting machine data required for state audits. One hour after the story was published, Bill Gates, vice chairman of the county board of supervisors, and other members received an email with a link to the article.

"You dirty mother fucking bastard," the subject line reads. "Do you have eyes on the back of your head?" The news continued. "People have limits."

Pundit continued to publish stories of false voter fraud statements, as multiple audits confirmed the results, and Maricopa's supervisor defended their accuracy. On August 9, an e-mail appeared in the supervisor’s public inbox, asking: “Hanging or the guillotine?” The message quoted a debunked Gateway Pundit story that claimed that the votes completed in the 2020 election were Has been smashed before being counted.

In the next month, Gates and his superiors and colleagues will receive at least 9 emails from the same sender, several of which quote the Gateway Pundit story and repeat the warning: "Treason Guilty hanging or guillotine?"

The supervisors are already very nervous. Gates’ Republican board member Clint Hickman (Clint Hickman) received a voice mail on August 4, which warned: “People will come to the homes of the Supervisory Board and basically execute their families. It should be. very funny."

The voice mail did not mention Gateway Pundit. But Hickman and Gates said that they accused authority of false reports that inspired many threats and harassment messages against board members. Hickman said: “There is no doubt that this blog poses a threat to me, my colleagues, and even my family’s 77-year-old business,” he added, adding that the site is reminiscent of “no fact-checking”. Ridiculous scene".

Gates told Reuters that he had submitted about a dozen hostile messages to the police. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said it has been assessing threats to supervisors. It did not arrest anyone.

The threat of hanging and shooting

A few days after the election, Gateway Pundit published a false story targeting election officials in Rock County, Wisconsin, about an hour’s drive from Madison.

The website reported that a software malfunction caused 10,000 votes to be "transferred" from Trump to Biden "only in one county in Wisconsin." It said that this glitch was the Democratic Party’s plan to "steal" the game.

That article was posted on Twitter by Eric Trump, the son of the former president. He did not respond to an interview request sent through the former president's office.

In fact, the number of votes has never changed. The Associated Press made a mistake in its published election results table and quickly corrected it.

The next morning, the county party secretary Lisa Tollefson received a call about this story at about 7 in the morning, and then hurried to work, and found that the phone line was full of angry Trump voters. Yelling at her staff. The riots lasted for four days. “It was serious enough that we let the sheriff know that he protected us,” Tolevson said.

Two weeks later, on November 28, Gateway Pundit set its sights on Maribeth Witzel-Behl, a clerk in Madison, Wisconsin. Her initials appeared on thousands of absentee ballots, which was incorrectly identified by authorities. Is "fake".

Worried about the inaccuracy of the story and the threats they caused, she consulted the city's prosecutor Michael Haas, who sent an email to Hoft, asking authorities to correct the article and delete threatening comments.

"If our employees receive other threats or actual harassment, we will hold you accountable," Haas wrote.

The next day, the story was updated: the term "fake ticket" was changed to "suspicious ticket". All comments are also deleted from the page. This story was marked as "updated", but there was no correction.

Jokhoff, brother of site founder Jim Hoff, wrote a follow-up story about the Haas warning. He asserted that Haas is attacking the right to freedom of speech of authority figures.

"We found the city prosecutor's response to be threatening," he wrote.

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