The story updated March 19, 2026
A longstanding, high-profile defamation case against the Gateway Pundit — this one involving the allegation that Dominion voting machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election against President Donald J. Trump — has again been delayed.
A three-week jury trial in the case had been set to begin in Denver County District Court in Denver, Col., April 6. But in response to a request by the defendants, who said they needed more time to prepare, it has now been pushed back until July 20. Besides the St. Louis-based Gateway Pundit and its owner, James Hoft, the defendants include Donald J. Trump for President Inc. (the official name of the 2020 Trump presidential campaign), former Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, and Joseph Oltmann, a Colorado podcaster.
The case was originally filed in December 2020. The plaintiff is Eric Coomer, the former Director of Product Security and Strategy for Dominion Voting Systems. He has accused all the defendants of recklessly spreading false claims that he conspired with Antifa activists to rig the 2020 presidential election by switching votes to Joe Biden.
Hoft has contended that his coverage relied on the sworn affidavits, statements, and evidence presented by others; that it was offered without malice; and that it is protected free speech.
But attorneys for Coomer say Hoft relied on “false allegations” made originally by Oltmann without making any “efforts to verify or corroborate” them and in spite of the fact there was “no credible evidence” to support them.
Hoft’s attacks on Coomer remain on the Gateway Pundit website. Some sample headlines of stories under his own by-line:
- Nov. 16, 2020 – Denver Business Owner: Dominion’s Eric Coomer Is an Unhinged Sociopath …
- Nov. 27, 2020: BALD-FACED LIES: Dominion Says Assertions of Vote Switching Are “Completely False” — But We Have Two Videos of Dominion Executive Eric Coomer Showing How to Switch Votes
- Oct. 12, 2021: “F**k the USA!” – Dominion’s Eric Coomer Admits Under Oath to Being a Former Skinhead, Heroin Addict – Lied in Denver Post Screed (VIDEO)”
Coomer’s suit says that such coverage and similar allegations by other defendants resulted in “an onslaught of harassment and credible death threats issued against him,” which forced him into hiding and to leave his job. He is apparently still in hiding.
A federal court jury in Denver has already ruled against one of the people Coomer sued separately in the matter. Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman and aggressive election denier, was ordered last June to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages for his role in defaming him. Lindell announced his candidacy for governor of Minnesota six months later.
Several other defendants have settled. They include Sidney Powell, a former Trump attorney; One America News Network and its White House correspondent, Chanel Rion; Newsmax Media, Inc., which also publicly apologized; Salem Media of Colorado, a conservative Christian media company; and Salem Media’s former radio host, Randy Corporon, who is also part of Hoft’s legal team in the Colorado case, along with St. Louis-based attorney Jonathan C. Burns.
A similar suit involving false charges of vote-switching by Dominion voting machines was filed by Dominion Voting Systems itself against Fox News in 2021. That case also was settled — for $787 million in 2023.
It is of course entirely possible that the Gateway Pundit will settle with Coomer too. He did just that in October 2024 in another high-profile defamation case, filed by two Georgia poll workers he had accused of fraud in the 2020 election. That case had been filed in December 2021 in the St. Louis Circuit Court and had been about six months from the court-appointed trial date when an agreement was reached instead. The terms were never disclosed.
Meanwhile, Oltmann has continued to make news:
- After walking out during a deposition he was giving in 2024 under subpoena in a U.S. District Court, he appeared less than three hours later on his own podcast, disparaging the judge and “suggest(ing) violence against anyone who may ‘come for’ him.” The district court responded with a hefty fine. It also found that Corporon, acting as his lawyer, had committed misconduct.
- Like others in MAGA world, including the Gateway Pundit’s own Jenn Peters, he has continued his strenuous advocacy in behalf of Tina Peters, a former county election official who is serving prison time for helping to enable a security breach that was part of an effort to show that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
- Taking note of the Jewish backgrounds of all three of Colorado’s top state officials – the Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State – Oltmann said in a podcast that they are part of a “synagogue of Satan Jews” and should be “hanged.”
- This past December he announced that he will seek in the Republican nomination for Colorado Governor.
For at least some of this, Oltmann has received negative media coverage. Not so in the pages of the Gateway Pundit. In 2022 the website came to his defense with this piece: After Mainstream Media Attacks, I Give Joe Oltmann an Opportunity to Set the Record Straight.
It is still posted.
Paul Wagman is a former Post-Dispatch reporter and FleishmanHillard executive who is now an independent reporter, editor and communications consultant
