In yet another unhinged attack on President Donald J. Trump, an activist federal appeals panel on Tuesday sided with a lower court judge who claimed that President Trump “colluded” with his own Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in bringing and subsequently dismissing a major damages lawsuit over the illegal leaking of his tax records.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied a motion filed by President Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the Trump Organization, and their attorneys seeking a stay of post-judgment sanction proceedings pending appeal.

As previously reported by The Gateway Pundit, President Trump originally filed suit in January 2026 seeking $10 billion in damages against the IRS and the Department of the Treasury after rogue IRS operatives illegally accessed and leaked private Trump family tax documents to the mainstream media.

They alleged a former IRS contractor illegally accessed and disclosed their confidential tax returns, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103 and § 7431 and the Privacy Act. They sought at least $10 billion.

That contractor was Charles Littlejohn. He stole and leaked Trump’s returns to the New York Times and ProPublica. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

As The Gateway Pundit reported in May, Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization did not pocket a personal payout. The May settlement, announced by the Department of Justice, created a $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, drawn from the federal Judgment Fund, to compensate Americans targeted by prior government lawfare. Unused money reverts to the Treasury. Future tax returns remain subject to ordinary IRS examination.

The corporate media still calls it a slush fund. Democrat governors tried to tax the payouts at 100 percent. The Gateway Pundit reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to confiscate every dime paid to California residents and dismissed the fund as a “slush fund.”

Then the former judges showed up

After Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice under Rule 41, the case closed the same day. Then 35 former federal judges moved to set the dismissal aside. They told Williams the settlement was “a product of collusion and [wa]s itself a fraud on the [c]ourt.”

The Gateway Pundit reported that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida, the Obama appointee, launched the inquiry. She later concluded the lack of adversity was “so obvious and so insurmountable” that the suit was filed for the improper purpose of legitimating “a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.”

The Department of Justice has rejected that. As quoted by the Financial Times after the July order: “There was no collusion in this case, and the partisan judge who speculated otherwise has disregarded decades of precedent. This case was brought by President Trump in his personal capacity, as well as by several members of his family, who were all victims of admitted violations of law.”

On Tuesday, the three-judge panel denied an emergency request by Trump, his attorneys, and other appellants seeking to stay portions of U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ sanctions order while their appeal moves forward.

According to The Hill, the ruling backed Williams’ earlier determination that Trump’s lawsuit and the subsequent agreement involving his administration were collusive. Reuters similarly reported that the Eleventh Circuit refused to pause the sanctions.

But there is an important distinction: Tuesday’s ruling was not a final decision affirming Williams’ collusion finding on the merits.

The appellate panel was considering whether the sanctions should be suspended while the larger appeal continues. The court specifically noted that its decision as a stay panel does not bind the judges who will ultimately decide the merits of the appeal.

Still, the panel concluded that Trump and the other appellants failed, at this stage, to make the strong showing required to demonstrate that Williams clearly erred when she found collusion and bad faith.

The appeals court wrote that Trump’s side “did not submit or offer any evidence” explaining the litigation conduct or demonstrating that the lawsuit and settlement were not collusive.

The post Obama-Appointed Appeals Panel Refuses to Freeze Sanctions in Trump’s $10 Billion IRS Case — Leaves In Place Unhinged Finding That Trump ‘Colluded’ with DOJ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Texas Majority PAC after a viral undercover video showed a since-fired organizing manager spelling out what he called a “roundabout way of paying people for their votes” ahead of the midterms.

A source familiar confirmed the probe on Wednesday. The investigation was first reported by Fox News Digital, which said two sources familiar with the matter confirmed the department is looking at the Democrat operation that dumps millions into flipping Texas blue.

The footage that forced the feds’ hand was released by Townhall on September 16. Sky McAdams, then an organizing manager for Texas Majority PAC, sat down with an undercover journalist and walked through the loophole he said the group uses to skirt federal election law while boosting Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico.

“We are paying people $25 to attend a one-hour Zoom class to learn why voting is important and why the Republicans are causing all of these bad things,” McAdams said on the tape. “So it’s like a roundabout way of paying people for their votes, essentially.”

He did not stop there. McAdams told the undercover reporter you cannot hand someone cash and say, “Here’s $25, go vote for me.” What you can do, he said, is pay them to sit through a class. “And then the class just talks about the importance of… It’s a little gray.”

He named the program. “It’s called the Paid Relational Program.” He added that he thought “Rally Texas” was the official name. Then he said the quiet part out loud: “If I was a Republican, I would be pissed. I would be like, that’s shady as f**k.”

The Gateway Pundit reported the tape the day it dropped. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Talarico is trying to beat, did not mince words.

“Absolutely outrageous! James Talarico’s team just admitted they are trying to bribe people for votes. Texans aren’t for sale, no matter how much James Talarico thinks they are.”

Paying someone to vote, or to vote for a candidate, is a federal crime. The workaround McAdams described is the whole point of the investigation: dress the payment up as a “class,” then point the newly motivated voter at the Democrat on the ballot.

The PAC moved fast to contain the damage. The next day it fired McAdams and told reporters he had “mischaracterized” the program. A spokesman said participants “are being paid for grassroots organizing work,” that the description from the “rogue employee” was “factually incorrect,” and that he was “immediately fired.”

That defense has a problem. PAC spokesman Eddie Vale later told Fox News Digital the video is real and has not been digitally altered or deceptively edited. They can call him rogue. They cannot call the tape fake.

The money trail is not a rumor. In a July campaign finance report, Texas Majority PAC paid the firm Relentless $500,000 for a “relational organizing program” — about a fifth of its spending to that point, Townhall reported.

At $25 a head, that sum covers roughly 20,000 payments. Relentless says its paid relational programs “recruit low-propensity voters and compensate them for their time as they reach, persuade, and mobilize their friends and family to vote.”

Similar drives in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania in 2024 were credited by the firm with tens of thousands of Democrat votes.

According to Transparency USA figures cited by Fox News, Texas Majority PAC had raised nearly $10 million in the 2026 cycle by the end of the second quarter, spent nearly $9 million, and still held more than $1.3 million in cash.

The group was founded by Texas campaign veterans Jason Lee, Katherine Fischer, and Crystal Zermeño. Its stated mission is to turn Texas permanently blue.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) did not wait for the PAC’s spin. On September 18 he wrote Attorney General Todd Blanche and demanded a federal investigation, Townhall reported.

“Americans deserve to participate in elections that are free of illegal immigrant voting, foreign adversary financing, and especially shady political organizations that seek to purchase the votes of Americans,” Fallon wrote.

Two weeks later, sources told Fox News Digital the Justice Department is doing exactly that.

The post Trump DOJ Opens Investigation Into Texas Democrat PAC After Operative Caught on Tape Bragging About a “Roundabout” Way of “Paying People” for Votes appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Guest post by Jefferson Davis

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled (6-3) on Friday, September 25, 2026, through an emergency order that allows the Trump Administration to temporarily use a revamped federal database (SAVE – Systematic Alien Verification of Entitlements) to verify the citizenship and eligibility of registered voters on state voter rolls before the November 3, 2026, Mid-Term Election.

This emergency order from SCOTUS was in result to lower court rulings partially involving the liberal League of Women Voters, among other liberal groups, challenging the use of the revamped SAVE System to assist states in removing any potential illegal non-us citizens from voter databases as follows by quoting from the SCOTUS Blog:

The dispute dates back to late March, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order that (among other things) directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to set up systems that would permit state and local governments to verify voters’ citizenship and immigration status. Those agencies then modified the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as the SAVE system, to include the records of U.S.-born citizens, to give it access to Social Security numbers, and to allow users to conduct multiple searches simultaneously.

The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center went to federal court in Washington, where they challenged the changes to the SAVE system. On June 22, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan agreed with the challengers that the modified SAVE system violates federal privacy laws, the Social Security Act, and the federal laws governing administrative agencies, and she barred the government from using it.

Sooknanan wrote that “the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.” Moreover, she continued, “states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”

On Sept. 4, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit turned down the government’s request to pause Sooknanan’s order while its appeal moves forward, but the court fast-tracked the appeal, directing the litigants to quickly propose a briefing schedule. The litigants subsequently agreed to postpone any briefing in that court until the Supreme Court acts on the Trump administration’s emergency appeal.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer went to the Supreme Court on Sept. 8, asking the justices to freeze Sooknanan’s ruling while the litigation continues. Sooknanan’s decision, he wrote, was an “indefensible order that threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by States to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes.”

Moreover, he argued, Sooknanan did not have the power to enter her order because the challengers do not have a legal right to sue, known as standing. Among other things, he contended, the federal government is not the source of any injury that the challengers and their members might suffer, because the SAVE system “merely notifies the States whether the federal government can confirm citizenship.”

The unsigned opinion for the majority indicated that the lower court’s order “inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.”

Some Legal Takeaways From SCOTUS Emergency Order:

• In spite of the apparent dog-whispering from democrats and members of the press/media, the SCOTUS Emergency Order has nothing to do with the so-called ’90-day blackout’ provision for removing specific individuals from voter rolls through Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
• In spite of the apparent dog-whispering from democrats and members of the press/media, no provision of NVRA prevents the ‘removal’ of aliens from any voter database (https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2024-10/LM362.pdf).
• In spite of the apparent dog-whispering from democrats and members of the press/media, the SCOTUS Emergency Order has nothing to do with any ‘privacy’ issues on behalf of any voters.
• In spite of the apparent dog-whispering from democrats and members of the press/media, the SCOTUS Emergency Order has nothing to do with any ‘disenfranchisement’ of any voters.
• SCOTUS, in part, refers to 8 USC 1373 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1373) as part of the legal pathway forward for agencies to communicate amongst themselves and the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
• Some legal experts believe the non-obstante clause applies to the September 25, 2026, Emergency Order from SCOTUS as follows:

A non obstante clause is a legal provision—beginning with phrases like “notwithstanding anything to the contrary”—that allows a specific rule or law to override any conflicting provisions in the same or other laws.

• Some legal experts believe the September 25, 2026, Emergency Order from SCOTUS also involves Void ab initio, which means the legal action had no legal effect from the beginning.
• DHS has all 50 voter databases.
• DHS is processing all 50 voter databases through the revamped SAVE System to identify any potential non-us citizens for immediate removal.
• DHS will be providing the potential names and addresses of all non-us citizens embedded in voter databases to all 50 State Election Directors.
• All 50 State Election Directors will be notified that if the names of non-us citizens are not removed from their voter database before the November 3, 2026, Mid-Term Elections, that they may face prosecution if it is determined that any non-us citizens actually have a ballot processed for them.
• Title III of The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires the ‘removal’ any ‘ineligible names’ from voter databases as follows:

(4) Minimum standard for accuracy of State voter registration records. The State election system shall include provisions to ensure that voter registration records in the State are accurate and are updated regularly, including the following: (A) A system of file maintenance that makes a reasonable effort to remove registrants who are ineligible to vote from the official list of eligible voters. Under such system, consistent with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg et seq.), registrants who have not responded to a notice and who have not voted in 2 consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed from the official list of eligible voters, except that no registrant may be removed solely by reason of a failure to vote.

Immediate Effect of September 25, 2026, SCOTUS Emergency Order on the WisVote Database

For over 6 years, Wisconsin State Elections Director Meagan Wolfe has repeatedly been asked to follow Title III of HAVA and Section 8 of NVRA to legally ‘remove’ the names of ineligible people in the WisVote database and she refuses.

Meagan Wolfe will shortly be presented with the names and addresses of non-us citizens in the WisVote database by DHS for immediate removal.

The September 25th Emergency Order from SCOTUS will have a direct effect on the removal of non-us citizens from the WisVote database before the November 3, 2026, Mid-Term Election as follows:

• WisVote currently has a total of 8.450 million total names.

• WisVote currently has 3.615 million ‘active/eligible’ electors.

• WisVote currently has 4.835 million ‘inactive/ineligible’ names.

• Wisconsin has approximately 320,000 non-us citizens (https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-immigrants-are-in-the-us/state/wisconsin/).
• Non-us citizens are counted for Wisconsin Congressional Apportionment for the US Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/faqs.html#accordion-964dc2a4db-item-f5263f00de).
• Wisconsin’s Department of Motor Vehicles has issued approximately 259,000 driver’s licenses and approximately 41,000 photo ID’s to non-us citizens between January 1, 2019 and November 30, 2023.

The post Potential Effect of September 25th SCOTUS Emergency Order on Wisconsin’s WisVote Database and the Legal Removal of Non-US Citizens appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The world’s richest man, the legend, Elon Musk has returned to the Trump administration.

This time, the Tesla CEO is returning to the Trump administration in a new Pentagon role that could give him a direct hand in shaping the future of warfare.

On Wednesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that Musk will co-lead a new government project that is tasked with studying the future of warfare.

The new project is being called Project Meridian, and according to the Pentagon, its goal is to “identify the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield”.

BREAKING: Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that Elon Musk will co-lead a new War Department effort studying the future of warfare during his State of the Force address.

Hegseth unveils Project Meridian, naming Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich to co-lead the effort under the… pic.twitter.com/stxOPThY8z

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 30, 2026

Per The Hill:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced that SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will lead a new Pentagon effort to study the future of warfare, dubbed “Project Meridian.”

The Pentagon chief said the project is meant to harness America’s innovators, senior leaders and technologists to look decades into the future and “forecast the creative solution for tomorrow’s conflicts.”

“It is futuristic on purpose,” he said of the project, noting it was not meant to develop new strategies or policies

“We should have the humility to recognize that the best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon,” Hegseth continued. “There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them.”

The Department of War revealed that Project Meridian will be completed in 120 days, and that its final report will be unclassified and presented to the public.

Musk is no stranger to partnering with the Pentagon.

In July of 2025, the Pentagon awarded Musk’s xAI a contract with a $200 million ceiling.

Reuters reported that Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, received $1.6 billion in orders from the U.S. Space Force to launch 18 Falcon 9 missions through 2027.

Musk’s new role with the Pentagon marks his first time serving in an advisory capacity under the Trump administration since leaving DOGE.

The post Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Taps Elon Musk for New Pentagon Role Focused on Futuristic Warfare appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A Texas man accused of planning to shoot up the state Capitol was booked before dawn Wednesday and, according to county jail records, walked out on a $75,000 bond before most of Austin had finished coffee.

Benny Caldera Jr., 40, of Converse, northeast of San Antonio, was taken from his home around 3 a.m. Wednesday by Texas Department of Public Safety SWAT after DPS received a tip Tuesday about a violent attack planned for Thursday, October 1.

He was charged with felony terroristic threat against a public servant and hauled to the Bexar County Jail.

According to the Washington Examiner, jail records showed him released on that $75,000 bond just before 7 a.m., roughly four hours after the raid, and was placed on pretrial supervision.

According to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, an arrest-warrant affidavit says a friend told DPS that Caldera had made verbal threats to assault the Texas State Capitol, told him “I love you, if you don’t see me again,” and then said, “I am going to the Capitol and I am going to shoot it up.”

The same documents say Caldera was angry at AIPAC and declared that “these people have to be exterminated.”

Bexar County records also show a prior unlicensed-carrying-a-weapon charge from November 2023, NBC 5 reported.

A man with a weapons case on his sheet, accused of planning a Capitol shooting, and the number on the bond sheet was $75,000.

State Sen. Tan Parker, a Flower Mound Republican, did not dress it up. “Let me get this straight: a man accused of plotting an attack on the Texas Capitol, with a prior weapons charge, was arrested at 3 a.m. and bonded out the same morning. $75,000? That’s a joke,” Parker wrote, adding that the people who allowed it “should be ashamed of themselves and removed from office.”

Let me get this straight: a man accused of plotting an attack on the Texas Capitol, with a prior weapons charge, was arrested at 3 a.m. and bonded out the same morning. $75,000? That’s a joke. This man is a danger to every Texan who walks through those doors and to communities…

— Senator Tan Parker (@TanParkerTX) October 1, 2026

DPS says he never actually walked free. The jail log told a different story.

The cleanup came later. The Texas Tribune reported that DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen insisted online there was “lots of misinformation” about a bond release and that the FBI re-arrested Caldera on federal charges and moved him into federal custody.

Lots of misinformation circulating online.

To be clear, Caldera is NOT out on bond. He was transferred to the FBI to be held in federal custody.

There is no reason to believe there’s an ongoing threat to the Texas State Capitol. https://t.co/iswq4yFvI7

— Sheridan Nolen (@sheridannolen) October 1, 2026

NBC 5 said the FBI took him at the Bexar County Jail Wednesday evening on those additional federal charges, and that he was released from the county jail into federal custody. Parker later updated that the $75,000 bond “didn’t get him far” and that a federal warrant put him back behind bars.

UPDATE: That $75K bond didn’t get him far. Thankfully, he’s back in custody on a federal warrant. Thank you to our @TxDPS heroes for putting in the extra work with our federal partners to keep him behind bars where he belongs. Next session, I’m filing legislation to slam this… https://t.co/57pI8Jbi0C

— Senator Tan Parker (@TanParkerTX) October 1, 2026

An internal email from Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw, obtained by the Tribune, called Caldera the “main suspect” in a planned Thursday attack and referred to suspected co-conspirators. DPS’s public statement did not name anyone else. The agency later said there is no reason to believe an ongoing threat remains, and that the Capitol stayed open with an increased DPS presence.

Fox News reported that FBI Director Kash Patel credited the speed of the takedown: “Within HOURS of the tip, @TxDPS had the main suspect in custody — with @FBISanAntonio and local law enforcement assisting. Threaten Americans or our institutions and law enforcement will move FAST.” Governor Greg Abbott posted that “Texas DPS and the FBI stopped a planned attack on the Texas Capitol. Texas will NOT tolerate threats of violence against our Capitol.”

Outstanding work by @TxDPS. Proud of our @FBISanAntonio team for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our state and local partners.

Within HOURS of the tip, @TxDPS had the main suspect in custody — with @FBISanAntonio and local law enforcement assisting

Threaten Americans or our… pic.twitter.com/neg82hEhWW

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) September 30, 2026

The post Texas Man Accused of Plotting Attack on State Capitol Posts $75,000 Bond Just Hours After 3 A.M. SWAT Arrest — FBI Then Takes Him Into Federal Custody appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.