Gavin Newsom wants to fight “fire with fire” when it comes to Donald Trump and attacks on American democracy, but HBO and Bill Maher just want Laura Loomer to stop talking and posting.
Good luck.
“It has come to Defendants’ attention that after Plaintiff needlessly filed her deposition on the public docket as part of unrelated objections, a copy of the unsealed exhibit was made available on the website CourtListener,” HBO declared to Florida-based federal Judge James Moody in a filing this week, a couple of weeks after Loomer’s scorching deposition with the outlet and Maher’s lawyer Katherine Bolger and others was leaked.
HBO is accusing the hot-button Rumble host of stepping over the line online with the federal courts by talking about her deposition, which was not intended to be made public. It’s a leak that Loomer, who sued HBO and Maher for defamation and $150 million in October 2024, took the time to comment on, as
HBO’s Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and Shullman Fugate PLLC attorneys noted: “Since yesterday, Plaintiff has Tweeted about this deposition three times in contravention of the Court’s Order.”
This all started on September 22, 2024, when Maher postulated on-air that Trump and Loomer were having a fling.
Specifically, the host resurrected his who is Trump “f*cking” quip and replied to himself, “I think it might be Laura Loomer.” In Maher’s logic, and in search of an easy laugh, that’s why the far-right activist had so much pull with the then GOP candidate. In her deposition, which leaked online last month, Loomer says the blast radius of onetime Trump dinner companion Maher’s remark left her “smeared as a whore and as a groupie.”
“Bill Maher has no understanding of my personal life,” Loomer went on to say in the now resealed depo. “He was reckless with the regard to the fact that I have a boyfriend. And he has no evidence that I had sex with President Trump. It’s just outrageous. And so as it relates to my situation, yes, it’s defamatory.”
This week, in a sideshow that will likely not make it into Maher’s Real Time monologue tonight, HBO wants Moody to shut down Loomer and the leaks.
In that context, two of Loomer’s tweets from August 12 directly referenced her contention in the deposition that she had been previous told by “several of President Trump’s staff … in confidence that Lindsey Graham is gay.” As well as hitting frequent foe Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-FL) and Arby’s (won’t go there, look it up), Loomer punched way up on the longtime South Carolina senator and Trump loyalist to a fault.
On Thursday, Loomer’s lawyer Larry Klayman essentially told HBO and Maher to take a long walk off a short legal pier.
“The tweets that Defendants reference that were made by Plaintiff Ms. Loomer actually show that she did not disclose or reveal any information in the sealed deposition,” the Judicial Watch founder said in his August 14 filing. “Ms. Loomer simply responded innocuously to inquiries posed by persons whohad gained access to the deposition transcript through their own means. Thus, the bottom line is that she did not ‘use’ any of her deposition or discovery.”
Klayman ends his filing popping HBO and Maher on the nose for leaning into the leaked deposition and Loomer’s tweets. He calls it simply a scheme to “drive up time, cost, and expense with a manufactured nonissue.”
Bill Maher on HBO’s ‘Real Time with Bill Maher‘ in 2024
HBO Max
Reps for HBO and Maher did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the latest legal flurry.
Love her, hate her, fear her or just wish she would leave you alone, Trump’s self-declared MAGA “loyalty enforcer” Loomer has proven a power player in Trump’s D.C. While she has no official gig in the administration — which Loomer says is in no small part due to Maher’s comments about her and Trump — among her alleged victims so far have been National Security Council and CIA staffers as well as some of RFK Jr’s staff, though White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had at least one MAHA team member rehired.
On Thursday, HBO and Maher’s lawyers were back in the court docket (read that filing here) pushing Moody to get Loomer and Klayman to hand over documents required for the soon-to-end discovery. They also questioned Loomer to provide some evidence of “a single social relationship that has been harmed” by Maher’s statement. Perhaps more importantly, HBO and Maher want Loomer “to identify any individual she contends was led by Defendants’ statement to mistakenly believe that she and President Trump engaged in a sexual relationship.”
Or put another way: “Plaintiff argues that her sitting for a deposition somehow alleviates her of her obligation to produce responsive documents and answer interrogatories. That is not the law. Parties do not get to pick and choose which discovery vehicles they prefer to engage with.”
