The probate commissioner who ruled against Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to consolidate control of the media titan’s vast empire has a history of supporting Democrat candidates and causes, a Daily Signal investigation revealed.
Edmund “Joe” Joseph Gorman Jr., the probate commissioner for Washoe County, Nev., ruled in December that Rupert Murdoch would be unable to change his family trust to give his eldest son, Lachlan, more control over the Murdoch media empire upon his death. Lachlan is committed to maintaining Fox News’ conservative viewpoint.
Before the commissioner’s ruling, even members of the Murdoch family had a hard time uncovering Gorman’s sympathies and biases. At the time, three of Rupert’s other children—James, Elisabeth, and Prudence—and their spouses huddled inside a house at Lake Tahoe. “They searched Google for Edmund Gorman, the Nevada probate commissioner overseeing the proceedings, hoping to ascertain any biographical details that might reveal his sympathies,” a report from McKay Coppins of The Atlantic read.
For the first time, The Daily Signal is revealing some of those clues about Gorman.
He and his wife, Lauren, are both registered Democrats, documents obtained by The Daily Signal show.
Federal Election Commission filings also reveal Joe and Lauren have made a series of donations to Democrat candidates, such as Bernie Sanders’ and Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns. Joe earmarked over $150 to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns through ActBlue, a left-wing PAC and fundraising platform, and earmarked $50 in a later ActBlue donation to Biden For President. Joe has made at least another $450 in donations to liberal candidates dating back to 2013.
Lauren also made donations to ActBlue, earmarking $191 to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns between 2015 and 2020. Another $50 in a 2020 donation made by Lauren was earmarked for Fair Fight, Inc. PAC, which was founded by Stacey Abrams in 2018 to fight against alleged voter suppression.
Lauren is a public defender on the county and federal level and made headlines in 2021 when working on behalf of a convicted drug trafficker who re-entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico after he was deported. In a podcast with “This is Reno,” Lauren said she argued in front of the District Court of Nevada that the law that criminalizes reentering the U.S. after deportation “was racist in its intent and its effect.” The district court’s chief judge, Miranda Du, ruled in Lauren’s favor. That ruling, however, was overturned on appeal.
The Daily Signal also found Joe Gorman engaged with left-wing legal theories while in law school.
In 2009, the same year he graduated Stanford Law School, Gorman wrote a book review of “Water, Place, And Equity” for the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Gorman criticized the authors of the book for “declin[ing] to engage in a deeper analysis of the human activities that have brought carbon emissions to disastrous levels” when considering equity-based policy solutions.
As currently constituted, control of the Murdoch media empire will be divided evenly between the four Murdoch children upon Rupert’s death. In recent years, however, Rupert has wanted to give control of the empire to Lachlan, who replaced his father as head of Fox News and News Corp after Rupert stepped down in 2023. Rupert sought to change the family trust to give the conservative Lachlan control. But Gorman struck down that effort in a 96-page opinion, which called the plan a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles… regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries.”
When contacted by The Daily Signal, Commissioner Gorman declined to provide comment.