# Charles Harder **Charles Harder** (born November 9, 1969) is the media lawyer who won Hulk Hogan's case against Gawker — a suit secretly bankrolled by [[Peter Thiel]] — and then became a go-to litigator for the Trumps. ## Gawker In March 2016 a jury awarded [[Hulk Hogan]] $140 million ($115 million compensatory, $25 million punitive) against [[Gawker Media]]. In May 2016 Forbes and the *New York Times*' DealBook reported that Thiel had funded the case; Thiel's grievance dated to Gawker's 2007 Valleywag post outing him, and he had called Valleywag "the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda." Gawker filed for bankruptcy in June 2016 and its assets were sold to Univision for $135 million. ## Trump-world clients Harder represented Melania Trump against the *Daily Mail*, which settled in 2017 for $2.9 million and a retraction. In 2018 he sent cease-and-desist letters to Michael Wolff and [[Steve Bannon]]. Against [[Stormy Daniels]] he won an anti-SLAPP ruling awarding Trump $292,052.33 in fees plus a $1,000 sanction (December 2018), affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in July 2020. ## Envoy In June 2025 Harder was appointed U.S. Special Envoy for Best Future Generations, an office focused on the well-being of children; he visited Dhaka in April 2026. Wikipedia says Charity Wallace succeeded him on July 7, 2026 *[single-sourced]*; OpenSanctions lists Wallace in the role from July 2026. ## RWKB angle Harder is the courtroom arm of billionaire grievance: a third-party-funded suit that destroyed a media outlet (see [[Lawfare]]), followed by work for the president and a government appointment. ## See Also - [[Peter Thiel]] - [[Gawker Media]] - [[SLAPP Lawsuits]]