dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Major Earthquake Rocks Panama, Triggers Tsunami Warning

9 Oct 2026

A magnitude-7.7 earthquake rocked Panama on Friday, unleashing panic in the high-rise capital city and causing buildings to collapse in the center of the country.

USGS said the quake was detected at 1756 GMT with an epicenter 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the small town of Pitaloza Arriba in the south-center of Panama.

It triggered a tsunami warning for Panama and warnings of smaller but dangerous waves along the coasts of other countries in Latin America and the south Pacific.

The quake, registered at a shallow depth of 12 kilometers, was felt across the country of around 4.5 million people, according to the National Civil Protection System, and lasted for around a minute.

The US Tsunami Warning System said that tsunami waves up to three meters high could hit the Panama coastline in the coming hours.

In Panama City, about 200 kilometers from the epicenter, there were scenes of panic as people rushed to evacuate from skyscrapers, AFP witnessed.

There were no reports yet of casualties but extensive damage was expected, particularly in the center of the Central American nation.

“I’m in shock right now and haven’t been able to contact my family,” Luis Poveda, a factory worker in the central city of Santiago de Veraguas told AFP.

Huge aftershocks

“We all ran out of the building, the power lines were swaying, and everyone was outside,” Arnulfo Santos, a worker at a flour mill in the same city said.

Images shared by local media showed that part of a hotel had collapsed in the town of Penonome, 150 kilometers southwest of Panama City.

A church in Penonome was also seriously damaged and other buildings showed cracks, according to local reports.

A road in the province of Veraguas had cracks, according to images released by the local press.

Over a dozen large aftershocks, one a magnitude-6 tremor, were recorded by the local geosciences institute.

Writing on X, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino called for calm.

“What happened should not be used to generate alarms and disorder,” he said, adding that he had called for a report on the damage.

Earthquakes are rare in Panama and when they do occur usually strike in western Chiriqui province, bordering Costa Rica.

The Panamanian quake is at least the fourth quake this year in Latin America surpassing 7.0 in magnitude, after devastating earthquakes in Venezuela’s Guaira in June and a powerful earthquake in western Colombia in August.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/major-earthquake-rocks-panama-triggers-tsunami-warning/

‘Immediate win for both presidents’ – expert on US-Russia diesel deal(VIDEO)

Moscow and Washington have reached a major energy deal to supply Russian diesel to American and global markets, potentially easing a fuel shortage

Published 10 Oct, 2026 12:42 | Updated 10 Oct, 2026 12:43

A major energy deal reached on Friday to export Russian diesel to the US and global markets, potentially easing an international fuel shortage, is an “immediate win” for both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Craig Pasta Jardula, host of the daily call-in show “Drive Time,” has told RT.

Both leaders spoke by phone for 90 minutes on Friday after which Trump announced Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and an additional one million tonnes thereafter.

“I do think these are immediate wins for both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Trump has midterm elections coming up in less than a month, so he can tout this as a victory.One of the biggest concerns in the US is oil prices, so this will boost market confidence at a time when markets have become increasingly unstable,” Jardula said.

Diesel prices affect agriculture, home heating, and trucking costs, and are near record highs, posing a risk for Trump’s fellow Republicans ahead of elections on November 3 that will determine whether they retain control of Congress. ==US diesel futures fell almost 5% following news of the deal and were trading at $4.64 a gallon.•=

Following the news, the US Treasury also issued a temporary sanctions waiver covering Russian diesel shipments until April 7, 2027.

The Ukraine conflict dominated much of the discussion between the presidents, with Putin briefing Trump on the situation along the front lines and Moscow’s response to Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on energy infrastructure and civilian targets deep inside its territory.

Putin said Kiev had effectively derailed plans to resume trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US, which the leaders had discussed holding after Russia’s State Duma elections. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Ukrainian drone attacks on polling stations and election officials had fundamentally changed the situation.

Moscow will now reconsider when negotiations can resume, according to the Kremlin aide.

https://www.rt.com/news/647021-pasta-us-russia-diesel-deal/

Interesting picture RT used for this article, the first time Trump met Putin!

Inside Trump and Mamdani’s 2-hour phone call after the New York City ICE shooting

By Gloria Pazmino, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN. Fri October 9, 2026

Source: CNN1/2

The friendly relationship between President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit one of its toughest tests yet Thursday after a series of calls over a shooting involving immigration agents in the Bronx.

Mamdani, who keeps an open line of communication with Trump, has argued that maintaining a working relationship with the president is a matter of pragmatism. Despite their stark ideological and political differences, Mamdani has suggested that direct engagement gives him a better chance of securing results for New Yorkers.

On Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and wounded a man driving his car while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat during a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx.

The incident set up an opportunity for the mayor: Pressure Trump on an issue central to Democrats and a large swath of New Yorkers, try to get the victim released from federal custody and use the outcome to prove why his unlikely relationship with Trump is beneficial.

In the end, the victim — a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant — remained in federal custody.

Mamdani held multiple calls with the White House on Thursday night in what turned into an hourslong attempt to negotiate that the victim, Oscar Belgal, be released from custody. The Department of Homeland Security said Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang, a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and prior arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession and weapons possession.

As the hours passed, protesters descended on the neighborhood, getting into skirmishes with police.

A person familiar with the talks described them as cordial in nature but said the two sides were extremely far apart in terms of what should happen next. A White House official confirmed the president had a lengthy conversation with Mamdani.

Mamdani has maintained that his diplomatic approach to Trump has benefited New Yorkers, but Thursday’s shooting could strain his relationship with Trump and test just how much the mayor can actually leverage from it.

At one point during the talks, Trump, Mamdani and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin tried to hash out a compromise that would allow the injured driver to be released from federal custody.

Mullin and Trump were willing. But only if Belgal was transferred to the custody of the New York Police Department. The Dominican national suffered a superficial neck wound when officers opened fire as they approached his vehicle.

Mullin said that during the call, Trump suggested to Mamdani the NYPD had enough reason to hold him given his criminal record, but the mayor refused.

“He was wanting us to release this individual back onto the streets,” Mullin told reporters Friday. “If NYPD wants to take the charges and pursue the charges, we’ll be happy to release him into the custody of NYPD. I shared that with the mayor. The mayor once again said we will not be detaining him.”

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/09/politics/trump-mamdani-phone-call-ice-shooting

>>25126532

2/2

Mullin also said he spoke with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Belgal was the subject of a DHS investigation into the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection agent and was part of a gang “known for theft using weapons,” according to Marcos Charles, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations executive associate director, who added that he had previously evaded federal immigration agents in September.

Mamdani offered to have the NYPD take the lead on an investigation into the incident, he told Trump and Mullin. The NYPD would take over as long as federal agents left the area of the incident that evening.

Trump pressed Mamdani to let the NYPD arrest Belgal, but Mamdani would not budge.

A source familiar with the conversations told CNN there was no legal reason to hold Belgal without a warrant.

“There was no warrant out for his arrest, no legal basis for the NYPD to take him into custody,” the person said.

Negotiations broke down after that.

“The mayor was being cordial, but unrealistic,” Mullin said Friday on Fox News.

Aides to the mayor argue his relationship with the president has yielded significant results. Although ICE has ramped up enforcement, the agency has not carried out large-scale operations like those in Michigan or Minnesota.

Mamdani arrived near the scene of the incident for a late-night press conference, during which he accused ICE of being “rotten to its core.”

“Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known: that  ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save,” Mamdani said.

In a press conference Friday morning, Mullin tied Mamdani and New York City’s sanctuary policies, which set limits on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, to the incident.

ICE operations in New York have been ongoing for months. An immigration enforcement operation that took place from late July to late August yielded more than 2,100 arrests, according to DHS. Mullin traveled to New York to announce the results of the operation, known as Operation Rotten Apple, and applauded ICE agents, while again criticizing Mamdani and Hochul.

“Over the course of this operation, we arrested murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers and violent assailants. And we did it with no help from Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul. The Trump administration is committed to protecting the American people in every city and every state, and we won’t let sanctuary politicians stand in our way,” he said.

Federal data reveals that arrests in the state increased over the summer. In May, ICE took 922 people into custody in New York. That jumped to 1,190 people in June and to 1,552 in July, according to the Deportation Data Project.

(CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.)

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/09/politics/trump-mamdani-phone-call-ice-shooting

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2108264990096683320

Bears legend Mike Ditka diesfirst video

5:34

Mike Ditka, a football legend who went from a star tight end for the Chicago Bears to its most famous coach to this day, has died at the age of 86.

https://youtu.be/9PRFmAFIt20

>>25126557

Remembering Mike Ditka, legendary Bears player, coach

Part 2

3:09

https://youtu.be/wUwdEkWTi5E

Russia’s Rosatom announces date of Bangladesh nuclear plant start

The first block of the Rooppur NPP will be connected to the grid at the end of November, Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev said in Dhaka

Published 9 Oct, 2026 11:20 |

The first unit of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant will be connected to the power grid at the end of November, the CEO of Russia’s Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, said in Dhaka on Friday.

Likhachev made the announcement at a meeting with Bangladeshi Minister of Science and Technology Fakir Mahbub Anam, where key issues relating to the project were discussed. The fuel-loading at the facility began in April.

The Rooppur nuclear plant, Bangladesh’s most expensive infrastructure facility, has heavy backing from Russia. Moscow is financing $11.9 billion in state loans for the project, which is estimated to cost up to $12.8 billion.

”Of course, we still have some to work here,” Likhachev said. “Our specialists are not only building, but standing shoulder to shoulder, working with operators in Bangladesh to ensure effective and safe operation of the plant.

”All the final decisions will be made by the government of Bangladesh, the people of Bangladesh,” he added. “We are aiming for around the end of November.”

The plant, built by the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission about 160 km from Dhaka, has two units, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts (MW). The first unit is expected to start operations with an initial supply of 300 MW, Anam said in April.

Russia is providing equipment, nuclear fuel, and engineering assistance for the project, and the plant is expected to meet up to 12% of Bangladesh’s electricity demand when completed

In June, at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman lauded the plant as a “monument to cooperation”between the two countries.

https://www.rt.com/news/646978-bangladesh-russia-nuclear-plant/

Trump and Putin split up the countries they’d work with. The plan is still going on. IMO

Nine dead in Pennsylvania shooting

Two children are among the victims, according to the police

Published 10 Oct, 2026 13:27 |

A gunman opened fire at a home in Erie, Pennsylvania, killing at least nine people, according to local law enforcement. Two children are among the victims, the police said, adding that the suspect committed suicide.

The police received a report about a shooting at a residence in the city of Erie in the early evening on Friday, according to the local media. Two women were subsequently found dead outside of the home; the other victims were discovered inside.

The suspect reportedly initially barricaded himself indoors, leading to a standoff with the SWAT teams deployed to the scene, the police department said. A local news media outlet photographer, who was present at the scene, stated that he had heard screams and gunfire at some point during the standoff.

The gunman then took his own life, according to Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah, who said the suspect died from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“At this time, we can confirm that the suspect is deceased. Based on the information currently available to us, there is no ongoing threat to the public,” the police chief stated at a press conference later on Friday. The city authorities also said that “the situation [had] been contained” and there was no danger to the public.

Neither the victims nor the suspect have been publicly identified. The motives for the shooting also remain unclear. “Our investigators are working diligently to establish the full circumstances of what occurred,” Lorah said, adding that “it’s going to take some time to put this all together.”

(Is AI being used for serious crimes now?)

https://www.rt.com/news/647025-nine-dead-pennsylvannia-shooting/

Palantir’s Thiel slams Pope Leo’s AI warnings

The billionaire has claimed the pontiff is using fears of the technology to distract from the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandals

Published 9 Oct, 2026 14:01

Pope Leo is tapping into public fears of artificial intelligence to distract people from the Catholic Church’s latent child sex abuse scandals, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has claimed.The gay US tech billionaire also accused former President Barack Obama of exploiting opposition to AI for political gain.

The remarks come as AI developers themselves warn that the technology could soon spiral beyond human control. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI owner Elon Musk have backed calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that rogue systems could seize control of vast swathes of the internet within months, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

The warnings have fueled demand for the tougher oversight of AI, with rival tech giants calling for safeguards against a technology they fear could evade human control.

During a series of closed-door lectures in Nashville, Thiel singled out both leaders while stepping up his warnings about the Antichrist, a prophesied figure traditionally associated with deception and opposition to the teachings of Jesus. Thiel has argued that such a figure could exploit fears of AI and other catastrophic threats to halt technological progress and impose a heavily regulated “one world government.”His remarks, delivered on September 28 and October 5, were revealed by Politico on Thursday.

“Many people know that AI is politically unpopular and want to leverage that to boost their own popularity,” Thiel said. “Both Obama and the pope fall into this category. Obama knows the Democrats have no ideas, but they can at least oppose AI.”

Obama recently urged Democrats to develop a more comprehensive strategy on artificial intelligence.

The openly gay Republican surveillance company billionaire went on to accuse Leo XIV of using the debate over AI to shift attention away from decades of sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

“He needed something politically popular to distract from the church’s child sex abuse scandals, and he found it in AI,” Thiel said, referring to the pope’s first encyclical, published in May.

Leo XIV has made AI a major focus of his papacy, warning about the dangers of unchecked development and its impact on human dignity, individual freedoms and the concentration of power.

Earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico that the world should accept some “bad things” from AI, including hacks, scams and misuse, in exchange for its benefits. However, he drew the line at “the really catastrophic risks,” including “a serious loss of control to AI.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also called for government regulation, warning that AI in the hands of malicious actors could trigger events causing “a billion deaths.” Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton has similarly warned that increasingly powerful systems could eventually escape human control, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.

(https://www.rt.com/news/646990-thiel-pope-ai-pr-stunt/

(Thiel looks very damaged. AI is dangerous power in the wrong hands.)

Jesse Watters on X: "BREAKING: TRUMP PICKED HIS NEXT PRESS SECRETARY @KATIEZACHARIA"

@JesseBWatters

Jesse Watters

@JesseBWatters

BREAKING: TRUMP PICKED HIS NEXT PRESS SECRETARY

@KatieZacharia

8:48 PM · Oct 9, 2026

@TimCamp03

Timcampbell

@TimCamp03

13h

@KatieZacharia is going to be a incredible press secretary ❤️❤️❤️👏👏👏

@JimmyRich777

Jimmy Richardson

@JimmyRich777

13h

I love her already, ❤️ the shallow pricks on the left will say… oh Trump is picking some blond girl, but they won’t dare have a conversation with that blond girl, lol, she’ll sweep the floor with their goofy, liberal, retarded, mislead asses

https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/2108721183759671417

State prosecutors argue Luigi Mangione’s ‘different crimes’ mean double jeopardy doesn’t apply to him

By Kara Scannell, Lauren del Valle, Nicki Brown, CNN. Fri October 9, 2026

1/2

Luigi Mangione should go to trial in state court for fatally shooting United Healthcare’s CEObecause murder “has nothing to do” with the federal stalking charges he pleaded guilty to in August, Manhattan prosecutors said in a court filing Friday.

“The stark differences in the definitions between these federal and state statutes thus demonstrate the different purposes of the two regimes,” wrote Joel Seidemann, the lead prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Mangione’s attorneys have asked New York State Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss the state murder and weapons charges, arguing under the state’s double jeopardy laws he can’t be prosecuted twice for the same crime. Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges in August and admitted he traveled to New York “with the intent to shoot Brian Thompson.”

Seidemann argued murder and stalking are different crimes and double jeopardy wouldn’t apply. To bolster his argument, he cited arguments Mangione’s lawyers used to convince the federal judge to throw out federal murder and weapons charges, which took the death penalty off the table.

The federal murder charge is predicated on being carried out through a violent crime that must also be charged in the indictment. Mangione’s legal team successfully argued at the time the two underlying stalking charges in the federal indictment are not violent crimes.

The DA’s office argues that defense argument proves the state’s second-degree murder charge – a violent felony – is inherently different from his federal stalking conviction. Specifically, prosecutors argued proving a defendant’s intent is necessary to support a state murder charge, but it is not required to prove federal stalking charges.

“In a nutshell, the essence of federal stalking or cyberstalking has nothing to do with murder, and the essence of state murder has nothing to do with stalking or cyberstalking: different harms, different evils, different purposes, different crimes,” Seidemann wrote. The state law, he said, “permits the continued prosecution of defendant’s state murder charge.”

The state weapons charges should also proceed, according to prosecutors, because US District Judge Margaret Garnett had already tossed the firearms charge from Mangione’s federal indictment before he pleaded guilty, so he was never “separately prosecuted” for that conduct.

The district attorney’s office asked that, if Carro does dismiss any charges, he does so without prejudice so state prosecutors can refile an indictment against Mangione if his federal conviction is overturned or otherwise undone on appeal after his December sentencing.

Prosecutors also rejected Mangione’s suggestion that he couldn’t put forward a defense to the state case – potentially that he suffered from an extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the shooting – because it could be used against him in the federal trial where a psychological defense is not allowed.

“The evidence in this case incontrovertibly establishes that this was a long-premeditated and well-choreographed killing,”prosecutors wrote.

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/09/us/luigi-mangione-double-jeopardy

>>25126746

2/2

Mangione confessed to the killing

Mangione, 28, was arrested in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in December 2024, ending a dayslong manhunt after Thompson was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan.

Authorities said they found key evidence inside Mangione’s backpack that linked him to the shooting, including a 3D-printed gun that matched shell casings from the crime scene and a notebook with writings expressing animosity toward the healthcare industry and an intent to commit an attack.

Friday’s filing said prosecutors with the DA’s office traveled to Altoona the same day Mangione was arrested. Over five days prosecutors presented evidence and called 25 witnesses to a New York grand jury to obtain an indictment.

The case has attracted national attention and put a spotlight on some Americans’ frustrations with the healthcare system, as Mangione has seen an outpouring of support from devoted followers who sympathize with Mangione’s cause.

The potential double jeopardy argument permeated pretrial court hearings, with prosecutors suggesting the defense was using delay tactics to invoke double jeopardy.

Mangione’s lawyers repeatedly raised concerns about the dual prosecutions, arguing their client was being unfairly tried twice for the same crime. Mangione himself even mentioned the issued during an outburst at a state hearing in February: “Same trial twice. One plus one equals two. Double jeopardy by any common sense definition,” he said as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

State prosecutors were adamant their trial start first because if it followed the federal trial, their case could be thrown out on double jeopardy grounds. The courts ultimately settled on a September start date for the state trial followed by the federal trial in January 2027.

But in August, Mangione confessed to the killing and pleaded guilty to two stalking charges, staving off the federal trial. His legal team immediately filed a motion to toss out much of the state’s case on double jeopardy grounds, prompting the judge to effectively postpone the state trial while the parties litigate the issues.

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/09/us/luigi-mangione-double-jeopardy

Anonymous ID: ef15d3 Oct. 10, 2026, 8:17 a.m. No.25126766 🗄️.is 🔗kun >>6780

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2108743444470370792

Trump’s type is Melania!

Court News

Trump announces committee investigation of Fed Governor Lisa Cook

By

Amy Howe

Oct 9, 2026

President Donald Trump on Friday announced the creation of a three-person committee to investigate allegations of mortgage fraud against Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. The news came in a notice that was published on the White House website just over two months after Trump notified Cook that he was considering her removal, and less than four months after a divided Supreme Court blocked Trump’s initial efforts to fire Cook.

“As President,” Trump wrote, “it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law.”

Cook has strongly contested the mortgage fraud allegations, and other financial records appear to undermine the Trump administration’s claims.

The dispute began more than a year ago, when Trump posted screenshots on social media of a letter to Cook in which he fired her. Trump alleged that Cook, who began serving on the Fed in 2022 and was nominated to a full 14-year term by then-President Joe Biden in 2023, had committed mortgage fraud in 2021 by listing two different homes – a condo in Georgia and a house in Michigan – as her primary residence on mortgage applications, making her eligible for more favorable terms.

The lower courts allowed Cook to remain in office while she challenged Trump’s decision. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that Cook was “substantially likely” to show that Trump had violated federal law when he fired her because the law allowing the president to fire a Federal Reserve governor “for cause” does not extend to removing a board member for her conduct before she took office. The firing also violated Cook’s constitutional right to fair treatment, Cobb said, because she did not have notice and an opportunity to contest her firing before it occurred.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left Cobb’s order in place while Cook’s challenge continued. The majority agreed that Cook was likely to succeed on her claim that she did not receive all of the procedural protections to which she was entitled under the due process clause of the Constitution before she was fired.

The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court, asking it to pause Cobb’s order. But the justices declined to do so, instead setting the case for argument in January 2026.

By a vote of 5-4, the court on June 29 once again allowed Cook to remain in office while her challenge continued. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that (among other things), “the President failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute. Without such protections, she could not properly dispute the charges the President laid against her.”

In the wake of the court’s decision, in a letter dated Aug. 5, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino notified Cook that Trump was “considering” whether to remove her from the Board of Governors. Scavino gave Cook 21 days to respond to the White House’s mortgage fraud allegations.

In her response on Aug. 27, Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, told Trump that the allegations against her were “unfounded and untrue.” Therefore, he said, any effort to fire Cook based on those allegations would be “corrosive of the independence that Congress sought to preserve” for the Federal Reserve Bank.

The notice that Trump released on Friday designated three senior officials in the Trump administration to serve on the newly formed committee: Kevin Hassett, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy; Andrea Lucas, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and Keith Sonderling, who serves as the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics (as well as the Secretary of Labor).

Trump’s notice instructed the committee to hold a hearing, which will not be open to the public, at the White House on Nov. 5.At that hearing, Trump said, the members of the committee may question Cook, while she will also have the opportunity to present arguments and evidence. If Cook opts to submit a post-hearing statement, he added, it is due by Nov. 10, and the committee should “submit written findings of fact and conclusions of law to me”and make a recommendation regarding whether Cook should be removed “[a]s soon as practicable after” that.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/10/trump-announces-committee-investigation-of-fed-governor-lisa-cook/

Anonymous ID: ef15d3 Oct. 10, 2026, 8:38 a.m. No.25126860 🗄️.is 🔗kun >>6865

Judge strikes down DOJ's policy of reviewing state voter rolls, saying it would "run roughshod over longstanding laws"

By

Updated on: October 9, 2026 / 6:46 PM EDT

A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration's plan to check state voter rolls against federal immigration databases, a blow to the administration's election-related efforts in the run-up to the midterms.

In a 78-page ruling, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote Friday that the Justice Department "cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people."

The Trump administration has mounted a nationwide push to obtain complete voter rolls from every state, including sensitive information about registered voters. The Justice Department has argued the information is needed to ensure states are complying with two federal voting laws — the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act — which aim to ensure states have programs in place for maintaining accurate voter rolls.

Eighteen states fully cooperated with the Justice Department's request for voter files, Sooknanan said. The department has brought lawsuits against most other states, and has lost almost all of the suits, according to a CBS News analysis. One state settled with the federal government.

The ruling applies to the voter files that the Justice Department has already received, as well as the files it is still litigating over.

Sooknanan rejected the Justice Department's argument that it has legal authority to demand voter lists, compare those lists against citizenship databases and urge states to remove voters who it claims are ineligible to vote. The judge also said the policy violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act, and said the federal databases could contain "inaccuracies."

"Today's decision does not prevent the federal government from taking lawful steps to support states' efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls. Neither does it prevent states from maintaining their own voter rolls. And to state the obvious, the Court's decision does not pave the way for ineligible voters to vote in our elections," Sooknanan wrote. "Rather, the Court vacates a policy that has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more — a policy that flies in the face of duly enacted laws designed to protect Americans."

She continued: "The challenged policy represents the federal government's attempt to decide who gets to vote. But Congress has left that authority where our Constitution has always placed it: with the states."

The legal challenge against the voter roll policy was brought by advocacy group Common Cause and individual voters.

Common Cause CEO Virginia Kase Solomón called the ruling "a victory for voters and yet another loss for the Department of Justice" in a statement Friday.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency is reviewing the decision.

Under the Trump administration, the federal government has sought a larger-than-usual role in elections, which are typically administered by states with some regulation by Congress. President Trump argues more federal scrutiny is necessary in order to prevent noncitizens from voting and curb fraud — though most election experts say fraud and noncitizen voting are extremely rare.

The government's push to run state voter rolls through the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database has faced court setbacks, as more than two dozen judges have denied the Justice Department's requests to compel individual states to share their voter lists.

Sooknanan also ruled in June that the Trump administration's overhauled SAVE database — which includes data from the Social Security Administration — was created unlawfully. The Supreme Court temporarily paused that ruling last month.

In practice, the impact of recent court rulings on the November midterms could be limited as federal law bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters from their voter registration lists within 90 days of an election.

Another Trump administration policy that set new rules for the U.S. Postal Service's handling of mail-in ballots was also blocked in the courts, with the Supreme Court declining the government's request to allow the rules to take effect.

>>25126860

Judge strikes down DOJ's policy of reviewing state voter rolls, saying it would "run roughshod over longstanding laws". Bullshit

Updated on: October 9, 2026 / 6:46