Chase Woodruff, Colorado Newsline

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is one of four big city mayors called by congressional Republicans to testify at a hearing next month on so-called “sanctuary city” policies.

Plans for the hearing, scheduled for Feb. 11, were announced Monday by House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, who called it part of an investigation into “misguided and obstructionist policies” that hinder enforcement of federal immigration laws.

“Denver is a sanctuary jurisdiction that refuses to fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement,” Comer wrote in a letter to Johnston. “To provide much needed oversight of this matter, the Committee requests documents and information related to the sanctuary policies of Denver.” ...

Federal wildlife officials announced Thursday they are seeking information related to what they called the illegal killing of a gray wolf reintroduced to Colorado as part of the state’s voter-mandated restoration program.

The wolf, an adult male known as 2309-OR, was captured in August as part of the Copper Creek pack, which was rounded up by state wildlife officials following a series of attacks on livestock in Grand County. Several days later, the wolf died in captivity from preexisting injuries “unrelated to the capture,” state officials said at the time.

Officials ordered a necropsy, which subsequently “revealed that a gunshot wound initiated the poor condition of the wolf and ultimately led to the cause of death,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a press release Thursday. ...

Colorado officials said Friday that state employees had completed the process of updating passwords on elections equipment across the state that had been affected by the improper disclosure of certain system passwords.

Employees were deployed to affected counties across the state to coordinate with local elections officials, update the passwords and review access logs to ensure that no systems were compromised. The effort “concluded successfully Thursday evening,” the office of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a press release.

“We appreciate the swift work to update these passwords and provide voters confidence in Colorado’s elections system,” Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said in a statement. “While the leaked passwords compromised just one of many layers of security that protect our election integrity in Colorado, we knew it was critical to take swift action and to work with Secretary Griswold and the county clerks to update the passwords immediately.” ...

Former President Donald Trump will hold a rally at a luxury resort in Aurora on Friday, a little over two months after local right-wing political figures began to spread the false and exaggerated claims about a gang “takeover” that have thrust the city into the spotlight of the 2024 presidential campaign.

No major-party presidential candidate has visited Colorado so close to Election Day since Hillary Clinton made a stop in Pueblo on Oct. 12, 2016, and polls show a commanding lead for Vice President Kamala Harris in the battle for the Centennial State’s 10 electoral votes. But Trump is making good on his promise last month to come to Aurora as he doubles down on misinformation and racist rhetoric about immigrants in the final days of his bid to return to the White House.

Trump is due to speak at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center at 1 p.m. The resort sits along Aurora’s far northern city limits just south of Denver International Airport, a 30-minute drive from the three apartment complexes at the center of the debunked claims about gang activity. ...

Colorado is the latest state to have its election system targeted by a lawsuit from a fringe conservative group repeating debunked claims of widespread fraud.

Two Colorado voters and the Missouri-based nonprofit United Sovereign Americans filed suit against Colorado state officials and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on Tuesday, alleging that its analysis of Colorado voter rolls shows the results of the state’s 2022 midterm elections were “unreliable.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit alongside Attorney General Phil Weiser, called the complaint “a sham lawsuit filed by election deniers as a part of a national campaign to undermine voter confidence.” ...