Quentin Young, Colorado Newsline

The judge in the case, Sarah Block Wallace of Denver District Court, granted the state GOP so-called intervenor status Monday, after party officials asked the court for permission to participate.

“Great news!” state party chair Dave Williams said today in an email to supporters. “Colorado Republicans can now file briefs, produce evidence, and challenge the other side in this case and at trial.”

The party is represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law and Justice, including conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow, who served as Trump’s personal attorney during his second impeachment trial in 2020.

“This case presents one of the biggest constitutional crises of modern history. We are prepared to fight on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party all the way to the United States Supreme Court if necessary,” Sekulow, ACLJ’s chief counsel, and Jordan Sekulow, the center’s executive director, wrote in an announcement last week.

The Colorado GOP in the case wants to protect its authority to select the Republican candidates who appear on the ballot.

The suit was filed Sept. 6 by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of six Colorado voters, who argue Trump is disqualified under a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars certain office-seekers who have engaged in insurrection.

The plaintiffs include former Republican U.S. representative from Rhode Island Claudine (Cmarada) Schneider, who now lives in Colorado; former Colorado House and Senate Majority Leader Norma Anderson, an unaffiliated voter who recently left the Republican party; Denver Post columnist and Republican activist Krista Kafer; Michelle Priola, Kathi Wright, and Christopher Castilian.

They argue Trump, the leading GOP candidate for president in 2024, is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says no person who took an oath to support the Constitution then had “engaged in insurrection … or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” can hold any office in the United States.

“Donald Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit says. “His efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when he incited, exacerbated, and otherwise engaged in a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol by a mob who believed they were following his orders, and refused to protect the Capitol or call off the mob for nearly three hours as the attack unfolded.”

The defendants are Trump and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat.

Griswold is an outspoken critic of Trump who has said Trump did “incite an insurrection and attack our democracy.” But she is named as a defendant because she “has not committed to excluding Trump from the presidential ballot,” even though she has the authority to do so as the state’s top election official, the lawsuit says.

In seeking to intervene in the case, state Republican officials argued that the state party under Colorado law has the ultimate authority to determine whether an individual is a “bona fide” candidate for president and that the secretary of state’s role in placing the party’s candidate on the ballot is merely “ministerial in nature.”

They noted that their interests are aligned with Trump but not identical to his, since the party’s interests go beyond the 2024 election to its authority in all future elections in submitting presidential candidates.

In a separate court filing asking the court to prevent Griswold from blocking Trump from the Colorado ballot, the GOP officials said, “Secretary Griswold, an active member of the opposing major political party who has publicly weighed in with her views on Respondent Trump, will certainly not adequately represent the Intervenor’s interests in this action, as her mind is already made up” about Trump inciting an insurrection.

The court scheduled a five-day trial to start Oct. 30, and the judge said Monday she hopes to issue a ruling by Thanksgiving. The case is expected to be appealed, potentially up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Colorado case is seen as the first major test of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause since the Civil War era. Other similar cases, such as one filed by Free Speech For People in Minnesota last week, are expected in other states.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

But the massive crimes that are said to have occurred in Georgia have ties to Colorado that go beyond those notorious defendants. Several aspects of the indictment trace back to Colorado in ways that range from curious to crucial, and they deserve greater attention as the country heads into another presidential election in which MAGA activists are all but certain to pursue fresh attempts at election subversion.

A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, indicted 19 people, including Trump, on 41 charges, the most notable involving racketeering and conspiracy counts. The indictment says that after Trump lost the 2020 election, the defendants “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

Part of that conspiracy played out in Georgia’s Coffee County, where the local elections supervisor, Misty Hampton, allegedly allowed co-conspirators in January 2021 to copy data from the county’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment.

Similar security breaches occurred in at least two other states. One was Michigan. The other was Colorado, where Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, is facing felony charges. She’s accused of having a role in arranging a data-copying session with her own Dominion election equipment in May 2021.

The Mesa and Coffee county security breaches are remarkably similar, and some of the same figures turn up in both cases. A source familiar with the case in Mesa County, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive matters, told Newsline this week that the resemblance appears to be no accident.

“The thinking is that Coffee County was the template for other states, for some of the supporters of the ex-president in other states to replicate,” the source said, adding that this dynamic had been suspected by Colorado investigators but was crystalized by the Georgia indictment. “The case in Coffee County in Georgia seemed to be a playbook that would be replicated in other states. And there’s a lot of similarities between Coffee County and what happened in Mesa County.”

The similarities go beyond Dominion machines.

The Georgia indictment refers to 30 unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators, whose identities to varying degrees can be inferred. Many observers have deduced that Patrick Byrne is one of the co-conspirators, though Byrne himself has denied this. He participated in a Dec. 18, 2020 White House meeting at which Trump and others conspired to reverse the results of the election, including by seizing Dominion equipment.

Last year Byrne posted a video of himself talking about the election security breach in Mesa County and claimed to have been in real-time communication with an unauthorized infiltrator as officials from Dominion and Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office conducted a software update at the county’s elections office.

“He actually called me on Facetime and he sat there telling me, ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’m seeing these people commit a million felonies,'” Byrne said in the video.

The alleged infiltrator, according to documents in the Peters investigation, was ex-pro surfer-turned-MAGA operative Conan Hayes. Hayes was also directly involved in unauthorized extraction of election system data in Coffee County, as was revealed in documents that were produced as part of the election-reliability lawsuit Curling v. Raffensperger. Hayes is also widely understood to be one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Fulton County indictment.

Among the accused election-subversion ringleaders in Georgia are Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. This establishes another direct connection to Colorado. Genesis of the Mesa County breach can be traced to meetings between Peters and election conspiracist Douglas Frank, who told the New Yorker that Giuliani and Powell were among the Trump supporters he consulted as he put Peters “in contact with some people who could come in and do backups” on the Mesa County election system.

Here’s a minor but notable Colorado-Georgia tie: The Curling lawsuit was filed by Coalition for Good Governance, a nonprofit whose work has revealed much of what is known about election meddling in Coffee County. The organization is based in Boulder, and its executive director, Marilyn Marks, launched her career in election reform after she narrowly lost a bid to become mayor of Aspen.

The Georgia indictment compels us to see democracy-thwarting efforts in Colorado as part of a much larger Trump-spawned conspiracy that spans many states. If the contours of the criminal enterprise emerged sooner, the case against Peters, whom the Mesa County district attorney is prosecuting, might have expanded accordingly, as it did in the Fulton County case.

Alas, there could be more to come — multiple sources confirmed to Newsline this week that a federal investigation into the Mesa County election security breach remains active.

Colorado’s connection to the interstate conspiracy was most dramatically illuminated by two of the Fulton County defendants, Trump attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis. Eastman at the time of the alleged criminal activity was a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder. He currently represents the Colorado Republican Party in a lawsuit against Griswold. Ellis until recently lived in Colorado and remains a fellow at the Centennial Institute in Lakewood.

Their roles in Trump’s unprecedented attack on constitutional order was already well sketched out. Eastman was the primary architect of a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court documents. Ellis, according to court documents, was part of the “Elite Strike Force Team” of hapless lawyers, including Giuliani and Powell, that went around the country in late 2020 pushing stolen-election lies in meetings with state lawmakers.

It would be a mistake to treat the conspiracy as defeated. After Eastman surrendered at the Fulton County jail last week, he told a reporter that he “absolutely” still believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. “Big lie” conspirators failed in their 2020 coup attempt, but they successfully inflicted grievous injuries to democratic health. A recent AP poll showed that only 22% of Republicans have high confidence that the 2024 presidential election results can be trusted.

That’s why Griswold told Newsline this month that she is “absolutely concerned” about ongoing “insider threats” to democracy heading into next year’s races. She said, “I strongly believe Coloradans and Americans deserve and need to know ongoing attempts to steal elections.”

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

“Plaintiffs’ complaint reflects an ill-advised attempt to regulate the political arena through a strategic lawsuit,” Boebert’s motion says. “Because the First Amendment shields speech made in the ‘highly charged atmosphere’ of ‘an intense political campaign’ from judicial scrutiny … Plaintiffs’ Complaint fails as a matter of law and must be dismissed with prejudice.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

SUBSCRIBE

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court of Colorado by David Wheeler, who last year publicized information about Boebert in an effort to derail her reelection bid, and the super PAC American Muckrakers, of which he is president. Wheeler, a Democrat, is a 2024 candidate for North Carolina insurance commissioner.

Wheeler previously brought a similar lawsuit against Boebert in a North Carolina state court last year, but the judge dismissed the case, saying that the proper venue for it was in Colorado. He filed the Colorado suit in June.

Wheeler and Muckrakers, citing sources close to Boebert, published information about Boebert that appeared to run counter to her political stance against abortion, among other allegations. The most notable release of information came in a June 14 press release that attracted national media attention. The group’s claims about Boebert in some cases lacked corroborating evidence or were shown to be false.

Wheeler stands by his allegations that Boebert once worked as a paid escort, had two abortions and used illegal drugs. His defamation suit claims Boebert made “maliciously false statements” about him and American Muckrakers on multiple occasions in media appearances last summer as she pushed back against his allegations, such as when she accused Wheeler of publishing “false statements knowing they were completely fabricated.”

Boebert in her Tuesday motion discusses Wheeler’s allegations at length.

Her statements in defense of herself, such as when she cited Wheeler’s “lies” and stated that his allegations were “completely baseless,” were “reasonable and truthful defenses against Muckrakers and Mr. Wheeler’s extraordinary attacks,” the motion says.

The document addresses specific allegations. Wheeler’s suit accuses her of having used illegal drugs. Her motion alludes to this allegation several times but specifies only that “Wheeler has produced no evidence that Representative Boebert has used illegal drugs” and that she has never been “a drug addict.” Wheeler claimed Boebert once worked as an unlicensed paid escort. Boebert’s motion in several instances exchanges reference to being an “escort,” a legal activity, with being a “prostitute,” an illegal one that doesn’t appear in Wheeler’s allegations.

Newsline sent messages seeking comment from Boebert’s team on Tuesday but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

A substantial section of Boebert’s motion makes the argument that her statements against Wheeler last year constituted legal “hyperbole,” not defamation.

“Representative Boebert’s statements were made in the context of a heated, partisan, reelection campaign,” it says, noting as a comparison that “The First Amendment was adopted, after all, by colonists whose first major protest of the Stamp Act was to burn effigies of British politicians in central Boston.” She concludes, “Accusations of falsehoods are, for good or ill, a time-worn aspect of American political campaigns. Listeners hear such accusations for what they are: rhetoric, not defamation.”

Wheeler said in an email to Newsline that Boebert’s motion is “full of falsehoods.”

“Boebert doesn’t seem to have read our complaint, nor listened to any of the recordings, nor read the text message or emails we provided as exhibits in our complaint,” Wheeler said. “The recordings, emails, text messages, and other information provided by named sources were the basis for the allegations that she had abortions, was a paid escort, and used drugs and they are named in our complaint.”

Boebert, who represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, was elected in November to a second term, and she is running for reelection in 2024.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST.

DONATE

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

“We are going to officially decline to comment at this time,” Annie Orloff, spokesperson for Democratic Secretary Jena Griswold, said in response to an inquiry from Colorado Newsline.

In Colorado the secretary of state has authority over the ballot qualification process.

The absence of an affirmative response from Griswold to the question of whether Trump’s name will be permitted to appear on the Colorado presidential ballot comes as pressure for her to deny ballot access on constitutional grounds intensifies and a watchdog group says lawsuits over the matter are assured.

Many pro-democracy advocates say the insurrection disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14 Amendment bars Trump from public office. The nonprofit advocacy groups Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund invoked that clause Wednesday when they sent letters to the chief election officials in nine states, including Griswold in Colorado, requesting that they exclude Trump, a Republican, from their state’s ballots.

“Criminal prosecutions will establish Trump’s liability under the law. But the enforcement of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Trump will ensure that our republic is protected and that this insurrectionist-in-chief is forever disqualified from holding any future public office,” Free Speech For People President John Bonifaz said in a statement.

Other states targeted by the group are California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania. The groups previously made a similar request in Nevada.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sent similar letters to secretaries of state and attorneys general, according to Donald K. Sherman, CREW’s executive vice president and chief counsel.

“Donald Trump took an oath to defend the Constitution. There was an insurrection. Donald Trump participated in it, in violation of his oath. And, you know, 2 plus 2 equals 4, and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says you can’t do that,” Sherman wrote in an email Wednesday.

Newsline contacted Colorado Republican Party chair Dave Williams for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Adopted after the Civil War to deal with officials in the former Confederacy, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Democracy advocates argue that Trump violated the disqualification clause with his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Among other authorities that blame him for the attack, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 accused him of inciting an “insurrection.”

CREW represented plaintiffs who in September successfully sued to have Couy Griffin, a former Republican county commissioner in Otero County, New Mexico, excluded from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. He was the first elected official since 1869 to be barred from office based on the disqualification clause. Griffin was part of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol.

CREW plans more such lawsuits.

“One way or another, people are getting sued,” Sherman said in a Newsline interview in April. “Maybe a secretary of state removes Trump from the ballot affirmatively, or blocks him from getting on the ballot affirmatively — Trump will sue them. If they don’t remove him, and they decide to put him on the ballot, I imagine some of these folks will get sued by people like us on behalf of constituents in those states.”

Sherman declined to discuss where CREW might file disqualification lawsuits. But he said it is important for CREW “to bring a case that is likely to succeed early enough in the process to provide clarity.”

About the prospect of filing a lawsuit in Colorado, Sherman said, “I think that there are attractive factors with respect to Colorado. You know, not the least of which that there’s a 10th Circuit opinion written by now-Justice Gorsuch precisely on this point.”

In 2012, when current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was serving as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge in Denver, the court affirmed in Hassan v. Colorado that states may “exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.”

In their letter, Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund cite the Hassan case in noting that a secretary of state can similarly bar someone from the presidential ballot if they do not satisfy the U.S. Constitution’s age or citizenship criteria, as Republican Scott Gessler, then the Colorado secretary of state, did in the Hassan case.

The deadline for Griswold to certify names for the 2024 Colorado presidential primary ballot is Jan. 5.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Plaintiffs David Wheeler, who last year publicized information about Boebert in an effort to derail her reelection bid, and the super PAC American Muckrakers claim that Boebert defamed Wheeler by falsely accusing him of defaming her.

Boebert and “John Does,” to be named later, are identified as defendants.

The complaint, filed against the Republican in U.S. District Court of Colorado, alleges that Boebert made “maliciously false statements” about Wheeler and American Muckrakers, of which he is president, on multiple occasions last summer, particularly during broadcasts of TV and radio host Sean Hannity’s shows.

Wheeler in March told Newsline he was considering whether to identify Boebert-aligned media entities, such as Fox News and Hannity, as defendants. Hannity is discussed extensively in Wheeler’s complaint and is alleged to have provided a platform for and amplified false assertions made by Boebert.

Fox personality Tomi Lahren is also singled out in the complaint as having provided a platform for Boebert to allegedly defame Wheeler.

Newsline requested a comment from Boebert’s office but had not received a reply at the time of publication.

Wheeler previously brought a similar lawsuit against Boebert in a North Carolina state court last year, but the judge dismissed the case, saying that the proper venue for it was in Colorado.

American Muckrakers last year exposed unflattering information about former Republican U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and is credited with helping to turn voters against the representative, who lost his primary bid.

The group then targeted Boebert. Wheeler and Muckrakers, citing sources close to Boebert, published information about Boebert that appeared to run counter to her political stance against abortion, among other allegations. The most notable release of information came in a June 14 press release that attracted national media attention.

The group’s claims about Boebert in some cases lacked corroborating evidence or were shown to be false. But Wheeler stands by his main allegations against Boebert, and the lawsuit notably asserts that “Boebert was aware that she had” worked as a paid escort, had two abortions, and used illegal drugs, even as she accused Wheeler and Muckrakers of publishing “false statements knowing they were completely fabricated,” characterized the statements as “defamation,” and said she was “moving forward with a lawsuit.”

Boebert never followed through with her threat to sue Wheeler and Muckrakers.

A key difference between the Colorado and North Carolina lawsuits is that the case filed Thursday invokes Colorado’s anti-SLAPP law. Enacted in 2019, the statute, concerning strategic lawsuits against public participation, protects Coloradans who exercise free speech rights from meritless lawsuits. Wheeler claims Boebert’s threats of litigation are subject to sanction under Colorado’s anti-SLAPP law, and he wants the suit to help develop case law around the statute.

“This case is filed in part to extend existing precedent establishing the meaning of Colorado’s law so that it provides the protection intended by our legislators in enacting the statute for the protection of citizens’ rights as plaintiffs as well as defendants,” the suit says.

Wheeler and his attorney, Dan Ernst, who is based in Denver and specializes in defamation, have communicated through letters and email with legal counsel and other representatives for Fox News and Hannity, according to copies of the communication obtained by Newsline from a source familiar with the matter.

According to the communication, Wheeler and Ernst indicated that their dispute with Fox News could be resolved if the company retracted allegedly defamatory statements about Wheeler and allowed him to appear on Hannity’s show “to correct the record,” as Ernst put it in a letter to Steven P. Mandell, outside counsel to Fox and Hannity. Mandell in a March 19 letter to Wheeler flatly rejected the proposal and wrote that “there is no merit to any of your claims.”

Wheeler in a March 20 email addressed to Fox’s top brass, including founder Rupert Murdoch and Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Hannity, Wheeler repeated the proposal in colorful terms: “What do you say about a good ol’ western shoot-out between Boebert and me on Sean’s show as a friendly way to resolve this and avoid f***ing lawyers, and courts?”

Mandell again rebuffed Wheeler’s request to appear on Hannity’s show in an April 5 letter to Ernst.

Wheeler’s lawsuit comes less than two months after Fox agreed to pay Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in a defamation case. He is asking the court to award him an unspecified amount in damages.

FINAL-Colorado Complaint filed 6.8.23

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

There is no serious dispute about it: Former President Donald Trump while still in office engaged in insurrection when he impelled a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol.

Also not in dispute: A clause in the 14th Amendment bars any office holder who engaged in insurrection from again holding office.

There should be no disputing then that Trump, the leading 2024 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, should never again be allowed to hold any office, let alone the presidency.

His campaign is gaining momentum, propelled by the adoration of cultish rallygoers, abiding loyalty of MAGA members of Congress, and even — you wonder how we got here — his recent arrest on criminal charges, which, perversely, gave him a boost in a poll among Republican-leaning voters.

But as the election cycle proceeds, his campaign must submit itself to the impartial and law-bound processes of election administration, and this is where, if the Constitution means anything, his run for the presidency must die.

Secretaries of state and other chief election officials throughout the country have an unambiguous duty to uphold the law and refuse to admit Trump to the ballot. They will be under extraordinary pressure to acquiesce and avoid such a stance. But each election official who grants ballot access to Trump will have betrayed their oath and become complicit in the Trumpian obliteration of constitutional order.

Adopted after the Civil War to deal with officials in the former Confederacy, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Last year, in the first known challenge under that clause in more than a century, the nonprofit advocacy group Free Speech For People filed a complaint with the North Carolina State Board of Elections to block former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for reelection.

The challenge became moot after Cawthorn lost his primary bid.

But a series of 14th Amendment challenges has since been lodged against seditious members of Congress and other elected officials. Couy Griffin, a former Republican county commissioner in Otero County, New Mexico, in September became the first elected official since 1869 to be barred from office based on the 14 Amendment’s insurrectionist disqualification clause. Griffin was part of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Crucially, District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew in the Griffin ruling found that “the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol” was “an ‘insurrection'” and that Griffin “‘engaged in’ that insurrection” under the disqualification clause. The New Mexico Supreme Court later upheld the ruling.

To bar Griffin from office but not Trump would be like disqualifying a rebel soldier but not Jefferson Davis. At least two federal court rulings from early last year provide legal support for disqualifying Trump under the 14th Amendment, noted Roger Parloff in Lawfare. “There is actually a disquietingly strong case at this point that Trump should be disqualified under Section 3 as a factual matter,” Parloff wrote.

The House committee investigating Jan. 6 significantly bolstered the case for disqualifying Trump when its final report, released in December, accused him of inciting an insurrection.

If Trump led an insurrection and he shouldn’t be allowed to hold office again, who has the authority to stop him? Secretaries of state.

Chief election officials throughout the country can determine whether to include Trump’s name on presidential ballots in their states. Some conservatives protest that only the federal government can exclude insurrectionists from the ballot, but that argument is exceedingly thin given how state officials enforce constitutional provisions all the time. They wouldn’t allow a 15-year-old on the presidential ballot. Likewise they shouldn’t allow an insurrectionist on the ballot. If election officials want to uphold their oath of office and serve their states faithfully, they must bar Trump from running. The Constitution demands it.

Jena Griswold, secretary of state of Colorado, chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. She has been one of the nation’s leading voices for protecting election security and denouncing election deniers. DASS was instrumental in resisting far-right secretary of state candidates in November.

“Extremism and election denialism are still corroding the United States,” Griswold said in February after she was reelected to lead DASS, according to Colorado Politics. “I look forward to the work that lies ahead to protect American democracy as we begin this next chapter.”

That work includes no greater imperative than blocking Trump from the ballot. If Griswold and other chief election officials fail to disqualify Trump, they will become accomplices in his crimes and vitiate whatever else they’ve done for democracy.

Some secretaries of state, perhaps many, are gaming this all out. They’ve no doubt considered that if they bar Trump from the ballot, he’ll sue, and the case would likely end up in the Trump-friendly U.S. Supreme Court. They’re also probably aware that lawsuits are coming if they don’t bar Trump. Disqualifying Trump would be an extraordinary move, an unprecedented rebuke of a man who has demonstrated a willingness and capacity to inspire mob violence.

But these legitimate concerns are superseded by a solemn duty to serve the people. They are outweighed by the tragedy a second Trump presidency would be for the country and the Constitution — neither under Trump would survive in a form that officials like Griswold have fought so hard to preserve.

But secretaries of state have the strength of law on their side, the faith of Americans at their back and the approval of history ahead. They must uphold the 14th Amendment and keep Trump off the ballot.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

David Wheeler, president of the American Muckrakers PAC, sued Boebert in a North Carolina state court last year for defamation and malicious prosecution. In January, the judge dismissed the case, saying that the proper venue for it was in Colorado.

Wheeler said he’s heeding the judge’s advice and is poised to bring a similar lawsuit against Boebert in Colorado, though now he plans to file in federal court.

Wheeler said he’s looking to depose Boebert on video about her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and numerous other matters related to the case. “It would certainly be in the public interest to be able to see that videotape,” he said.

And the defamation case may be expanded to include more defendants, like Fox News and Sean Hannity, he added.

American Muckrakers is widely credited with damaging the electoral prospects of former Republican U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina after Muckrakers released unflattering video of the congressman, who lost his reelection bid after a primary defeat. The political action committee later turned its attention to Boebert and started publishing information about her with the explicit intention of spoiling her reelection effort.

Boebert spokesperson Ben Stout declined to comment for this story, but he referred Newsline to a CNN article last year that debunked many of Muckrakers’ claims, and he noted that Wheeler was already unsuccessful in the North Carolina case.

Last year, Wheeler and Muckrakers published information they said was gathered from sources close to Boebert, though some of the claims lacked corroborating evidence. They announced that sources revealed personal information about Boebert that appeared to run counter to her political stance against abortion, among other allegations. In subsequent statements and on media appearances, including on Hannity’s show, Boebert accused Wheeler and Muckrakers of publishing “false statements knowing they were completely fabricated,” characterized the statements as “defamation,” and said she was “moving forward with a lawsuit.”

A lawsuit from Boebert never came. But Wheeler’s did. In the North Carolina defamation case, Wheeler said donations to the Muckrakers PAC went into free fall, and his own income, which came solely from Muckrakers, took a huge hit. He also said Boebert engaged in false prosecution after she filed for a temporary protective order against Wheeler and indicated in court documents that he engaged in “physical and verbal threats” against her — allegations he denies. A court in August rejected Boebert’s request for a protection order.

Though some of American Muckrakers’ claims about Boebert turned out to be false, Wheeler stands by the main components of its case against the congresswoman.

He noted that the judge in North Carolina dismissed the case only on the question of jurisdiction.

“He didn’t dismiss it on the merits, and he could have, because that was part of (Boebert’s) request for dismissal,” Wheeler said.

The decision to file in the U.S. District Court of Colorado is largely to get around the question of jurisdiction, he said, since Wheeler expects that if he filed a case in a state court, Boebert would seek to move the case to a federal court.

He said Hannity and Fox News could be defendants in the new defamation claim, because they “went after me pretty heavily,” saying Wheeler knowingly published falsehoods about Boebert.

“How they would know what I was thinking will be the issue,” Wheeler said. “Because everything that we published and put out was based upon what we were told, either in writing in documents or in recorded phone calls.”

Wheeler is working on the case with Denver attorney Dan Ernst, who specializes in defamation.

“We did contact Fox, and specifically the Hannity program. And they were explicitly not responsive. They weren’t open to David’s overtures about correcting the record,” Ernst told Newsline on Wednesday.

Newsline contacted a Fox News communications executive seeking comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Among Wheeler’s goals is getting Boebert on record regarding her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, he said. Boebert allied herself with the mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump that stormed the U.S. Capitol, and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top White House aide, in congressional testimony identified Boebert as one of a small group of Republican lawmakers who was involved in the beginning stages of talks with Trump officials on how to decertify 2020 election results.

“What was her involvement in that — on the record under oath? Because that goes to the facts of our case,” Wheeler said. “In order to undermine her credibility, we’re going to ask her about all these other issues in her life that we’ve made allegations about.”

Ernst told Newsline that he intends, before filing a new lawsuit, to ask Boebert for a “retraction” of false statements she made about Wheeler, which would go a long way toward resolving the dispute.

If Wheeler does move forward with a suit, Ernst said, one way it will be different than the North Carolina case is that it must account for Colorado’s statute against “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPP.

The anti-SLAPP law, adopted in 2019, seeks to prevent attempts to silence free speech on a matter of public interest.

Wheeler and Ernst indicated the suit could be filed in federal court in Denver by the end of March.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Ellis had been under scrutiny by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which investigates allegations of professional misconduct against Colorado attorneys. The office’s Legal Regulation Committee reviews reports from the attorney regulation counsel and determines if reasonable cause exists to seek disciplinary action against attorneys before the presiding disciplinary judge.

The committee has now authorized Jessica Yates, the attorney regulation counsel, to file a formal complaint against Ellis with the presiding disciplinary judge, according to Yates.

Filing of a complaint “typically takes 2-3 weeks after getting authorization,” Yates wrote to Newsline in an email Wednesday evening.

Yates declined to answer questions about the nature of the complaint. But in May, States United Democracy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, asked Yates to investigate Ellis for multiple alleged violations of professional rules and impose possible “substantial professional discipline.” In December, Yates indicated to Newsline that her investigation was related to the States United Democracy Center complaint.

That complaint says Ellis when she represented Trump “made numerous public misrepresentations alleging fraud in the election — even as federal and state election officials repeatedly found that no fraud had occurred that could have altered the outcome and even as Mr. Trump and his allies brought and lost over 60 lawsuits claiming election fraud or illegality.”

It notes that Ellis urged lawmakers in various swing states to certify false electors for Trump, and it says she drafted dishonest memos purporting to give legal rationale for then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ellis appears among key Trump-aligned figures in the final report of the U.S. House panel that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection, which concluded that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of a Trump-led “multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.”

Another primary figure in the report is John Eastman, author of the notorious “coup memo” blueprint for overturning the 2020 election, who at the time was working as a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder. Less than a month ago, California officials filed disciplinary charges against Eastman related to his conduct in helping Trump try to reverse his election loss.

Lawyers in Colorado are subject to the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Ellis is listed on the Colorado Supreme Court’s online attorney search as Jenna Lynn Rives.

Newsline sent Ellis an email seeking comment. This story will be updated if she responds.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

The former president launched his campaign in 2015 by saying of Mexican migrants, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” It was a gross mischaracterization of facts, but the nativist message resonated with a Republican base primed by far-right media figures to despise non-white immigrants.

When President Joe Biden came to office and Democrats took majorities in Congress, the excesses of xenophobia in high office ebbed, even as they flowed apace on Tucker Carlson’s show and other conservative hubs of hate.

But with Republicans back in the majority in the U.S. House, the anti-immigrant movement has found new outlets of expression in the federal government. And this week it got ugly.

The U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Tuesday at times sounded more like a bile-brimming Unite the Right rally than a congressional proceeding. Republican committee members were at pains to dispel the notion that the hearing was anything but an honest examination of the “border crisis,” given that it was preceded by justified protests — not least from the ranking Democrat — that the event was really a white nationalist promotional appearance.

But the Republicans couldn’t conceal their true intent. In practiced Trumpist fashion, Rep. Lauren Boebert’s question time with a pair of U.S. Customs and Border Protection chiefs, who were hauled in as witnesses, was filthy with xenophobic rhetoric. She cast migrants as “convicted criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers or even gang members.” And she asserted that Democrats intended it this way as a policy choice.

This is the language of “replacement theory.” The racist conspiracy theory holds that accommodating immigration policies are part of a plot to replace white people in positions of power and culture. “The theory often uses martial and violent rhetoric of a migrant ‘invasion,'” the National Immigration Forum says.

Observe how that tracks with Boebert’s remarks.

“The truth is there is an invasion happening at our southern border … and it’s happening because Joe Biden invoked amnesty and changed the secure border policies that were working for our country,” she said, adding, referring to Democrats, “This is intentional. In fact their policy is a success, it’s not a failure because this is their intent.”

Quintessential replacement theory. And Boebert was hardly alone.

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia suggested that unaccompanied minors, the most vulnerable and desperate of migrants, were in fact budding violent gang members destined to murder Americans, and she referred to “the illegal invasion into our country that’s occurring every single day.”

“Joe Biden does have a plan. His plan is to deliberately open our borders and cede power to the cartels,” said Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona. “Now why would Biden do this? Create chaos? Sow discord? … More Big Brother? More control? Even changing our culture?” He also made sure to refer to immigration at the southern border as an “invasion.”

Replacement theory can be traced back decades and even has antecedents in Hitler’s Germany and other hotbeds of false “white extinction” fears. But popularization of the modern American strain is often credited to Carlson and his daily white nationalist propaganda hour on Fox News known as “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

This once-fringe form of racist extremism is now taken for granted on the MAGA right. Sometimes its proponents dispense with dog whistles and are explicit in calling immigration a “replacement.”

“Yes, there is definitely a ‘replacement theory’ that’s going on right now,” Boebert said in one of several of her social media posts that discuss replacement or the “invasion.”

The nonprofit immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice has documented how numerous Republicans on the Oversight Committee have voiced white nationalist rhetoric. These include Chairman James Comer of Kentucky. The Biden administration has turned “the border patrol into the welcoming committee. They want more people to roll into the United States,” Comer said in December on Fox, according to the Daily Beast. “They believe this is part of their social equality campaign to fundamentally change America.”

Such replacement theory rhetoric kills people.

The mass shooting in 2019 in El Paso, Texas, was committed by a suspect who cited “great replacement” and a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The mass shooting in May in Buffalo, New York, was carried out by a suspect who wrote a 180-word document that rehearsed “great replacement” talking points. The racist conspiracy theory has inspired other mass shootings and other forms of violence.

Many observers, including migrant advocates, agree America’s immigration system is in crisis.

“What we are seeing on the southern border is a crisis, but it is not a crisis as our friends across the aisle would have us believe,” said Democratic Oversight Committee member Rep. Melanie Stansbury of border-state New Mexico. “It is truly a humanitarian crisis. And it is a crisis that has been manufactured, reproduced, over and over again, decade after decade, by inaction by this body.”

Immigration reform could include improved border security. But it should also increase resources for U.S. handling of vulnerable people who flee dangerous homelands to seek refuge in America, better serve the U.S. labor market, and do right by the undocumented children known as Dreamers. The one quality U.S. immigration policy should forswear is xenophobia.

When members of Congress amplify white nationalist goals, they put lives at risk, further polarize American society, and dishonor the country’s proud legacy as a beacon of freedom.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Xenophobia is the original offense of the Trump era.

The former president launched his campaign in 2015 by saying of Mexican migrants, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” It was a gross mischaracterization of facts, but the nativist message resonated with a Republican base primed by far-right media figures to despise non-white immigrants.

When President Joe Biden came to office and Democrats took majorities in Congress, the excesses of xenophobia in high office ebbed, even as they flowed apace on Tucker Carlson’s show and other conservative hubs of hate.

But with Republicans back in the majority in the U.S. House, the anti-immigrant movement has found new outlets of expression in the federal government. And this week it got ugly.

The U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Tuesday at times sounded more like a bile-brimming Unite the Right rally than a congressional proceeding. Republican committee members were at pains to dispel the notion that the hearing was anything but an honest examination of the “border crisis,” given that it was preceded by justified protests — not least from the ranking Democrat — that the event was really a white nationalist promotional appearance.

But the Republicans couldn’t conceal their true intent. In practiced Trumpist fashion, Rep. Lauren Boebert’s question time with a pair of U.S. Customs and Border Protection chiefs, who were hauled in as witnesses, was filthy with xenophobic rhetoric. She cast migrants as “convicted criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers or even gang members.” And she asserted that Democrats intended it this way as a policy choice.

This is the language of “replacement theory.” The racist conspiracy theory holds that accommodating immigration policies are part of a plot to replace white people in positions of power and culture. “The theory often uses martial and violent rhetoric of a migrant ‘invasion,'” the National Immigration Forum says.

Observe how that tracks with Boebert’s remarks.

“The truth is there is an invasion happening at our southern border … and it’s happening because Joe Biden invoked amnesty and changed the secure border policies that were working for our country,” she said, adding, referring to Democrats, “This is intentional. In fact their policy is a success, it’s not a failure because this is their intent.”

Quintessential replacement theory. And Boebert was hardly alone.

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia suggested that unaccompanied minors, the most vulnerable and desperate of migrants, were in fact budding violent gang members destined to murder Americans, and she referred to “the illegal invasion into our country that’s occurring every single day.”

“Joe Biden does have a plan. His plan is to deliberately open our borders and cede power to the cartels,” said Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona. “Now why would Biden do this? Create chaos? Sow discord? … More Big Brother? More control? Even changing our culture?” He also made sure to refer to immigration at the southern border as an “invasion.”

Replacement theory can be traced back decades and even has antecedents in Hitler’s Germany and other hotbeds of false “white extinction” fears. But popularization of the modern American strain is often credited to Carlson and his daily white nationalist propaganda hour on Fox News known as “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

This once-fringe form of racist extremism is now taken for granted on the MAGA right. Sometimes its proponents dispense with dog whistles and are explicit in calling immigration a “replacement.”

“Yes, there is definitely a ‘replacement theory’ that’s going on right now,” Boebert said in one of several of her social media posts that discuss replacement or the “invasion.”

The nonprofit immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice has documented how numerous Republicans on the Oversight Committee have voiced white nationalist rhetoric. These include Chairman James Comer of Kentucky. The Biden administration has turned “the border patrol into the welcoming committee. They want more people to roll into the United States,” Comer said in December on Fox, according to the Daily Beast. “They believe this is part of their social equality campaign to fundamentally change America.”

Such replacement theory rhetoric kills people.

The mass shooting in 2019 in El Paso, Texas, was committed by a suspect who cited “great replacement” and a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The mass shooting in May in Buffalo, New York, was carried out by a suspect who wrote a 180-word document that rehearsed “great replacement” talking points. The racist conspiracy theory has inspired other mass shootings and other forms of violence.

Many observers, including migrant advocates, agree America’s immigration system is in crisis.

“What we are seeing on the southern border is a crisis, but it is not a crisis as our friends across the aisle would have us believe,” said Democratic Oversight Committee member Rep. Melanie Stansbury of border-state New Mexico. “It is truly a humanitarian crisis. And it is a crisis that has been manufactured, reproduced, over and over again, decade after decade, by inaction by this body.”

Immigration reform could include improved border security. But it should also increase resources for U.S. handling of vulnerable people who flee dangerous homelands to seek refuge in America, better serve the U.S. labor market, and do right by the undocumented children known as Dreamers. The one quality U.S. immigration policy should forswear is xenophobia.

When members of Congress amplify white nationalist goals, they put lives at risk, further polarize American society, and dishonor the country’s proud legacy as a beacon of freedom.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Roughly a third of the way into the annual State of the State address delivered by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday before the Colorado General Assembly, he said, referring to the state’s housing crisis, “We need more flexible zoning.”

And with those words, along with the larger position Polis staked out on housing, he put the state’s NIMBYs on notice: the status quo just won’t do.

Colorado, like many other states, suffers from an extreme shortage of affordable housing. The debate about solutions implicates every resident in the state, and the conversation is deeply personal, since a family’s own home is part of its identity and the qualities of its neighborhood determine much about its lifestyle.

Also, as the governor noted in his speech, housing policy is inextricably tied to other critical public priorities, such as climate action, the economy, transportation, water resources, public health and equity.

The governor, in choosing the side of housing density, declared himself an opponent of the numerous “neighborhood character” defenders who haunt city councils throughout the state and public-comment regulars who so often can be heard extolling a single-family-zoning ideal. Polis chose the correct side. However, his success will depend on whether he’s willing to enact reform rather than just ask nicely for it.

The problem — essentially one of supply failing to meet demand — is enormous. Polis noted that housing prices have increased about four times the rate of income in the last 50 years. Colorado has seen chronic housing shortages during much of the past two decades. Before 2006, an average of 48,000 housing units were added to the state’s inventory every year, and this matched employment growth. Since then, an average of only 26,500 units have been added — much fewer than needed, according to one study released in 2021. Returning Colorado’s housing market to “a functioning level” would require the addition of almost half a million housing units by 2030.

The crisis affects tenants as much as owners. As would-be buyers get priced out of the market they join the ranks of renters, expanding demand for a dwindling supply of vacancies. Rents have soared in cities throughout the state, and more than 40% of renters are now “cost burdened,” meaning more than 30% of their income goes to housing costs.

The crisis touches every part of the state, and it especially burdens Black and Hispanic households. More than 70% of white Coloradans own their home, but only 51% of Hispanic and 43% of Black Coloradans do, according to The Bell Policy Center, which notes that this circumstance reinforces economic inequality.

So what’s Polis’ solution?

“Flexible zoning” was a remarkable prescription that surely made planning board members and HOA officers throughout Colorado shudder. Polis also mentioned “streamlined regulations that cut through red tape, expedited approval processes for projects like modular housing, sustainable development, and more building in transit-oriented communities.” Previously Polis has criticized local rules that restrict the number of unrelated people who can occupy a home.

These are welcome goals. But what’s missing is a clear approach to achieve them.

In a post-State of the State interview, Ryan Warner of CPR asked Polis several times whether he would mandate that municipalities enact housing reform, and each time Polis evaded the question.

“It’s not about the state or local government telling you what you can and can’t do. It’s about what your rights as a property owner are,” he said. How he expects an assertion of property rights against adverse local ordinances to play out is obscure.

But he did appear to offer a key to his unstated preferences. In response to conservative radio host Ross Kaminsky, who challenged Polis’ position on housing, the Democratic governor tweeted a link to a 2021 Colorado housing policy brief from the conservative Common Sense Institute, calling it a “blueprint for action.”

The report goes awry in places. For example, it largely dismisses the trailblazing move by the Minneapolis City Council in 2018 to eliminate single-family zoning, which is rooted in racial segregation policies and does so much to drive up housing costs. The report faults the new Minneapolis policy for lack of results, but other sources have documented a positive outcome.

Many of the report’s recommendations are sound, however. The authors take a dim view of minimum parking requirements, encourage the creation of more accessory dwelling units (commonly called “granny flats”), call for far greater housing density, and excoriate antigrowth extremists — the NIMBYs who want to block others from residing not just in their backyard but also their city or anywhere in Colorado.

“We view no growth ordinances as the biggest threat to affordable housing in Colorado,” the authors write. “The legislature should act to eliminate this threat.”

Is that a bill Polis would sign?

The governor articulated an impressively progressive position on housing reform during his address to the Legislature. If he’s willing to back up the rhetoric with decisive action, affordable housing might again be within reach for thousands of hard-working Coloradans.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

The current chair, Kristi Burton Brown, announced last month she would not seek a second term. The party suffered historic losses in the November elections, failing to win a single statewide office and losing ground in the Legislature, which prompted an intense debate among members about the party’s future.

Wood, who calls himself a “Christian Conservative, a marketer, a business leader, a grassroots activist, a husband, and a father,” is the founder of Freedom Fathers, a group of men who want “to ensure Christian conservative values remain strongly rooted in our society.”

He most recently gained attention as one of the organizers of the Save Colorado Project, a far-right faction of Republicans that on Nov. 30 held a press conference outside Boot Barn in Greenwood Village, near the state GOP headquarters.

“This is a declaration that real Colorado Republicans reject the ongoing center-left candidate selections positioned in front of us by the state GOP,” Wood said at the opening of the event. “After publicly rejecting America First, top-line candidates, our Republican chair, Kristi Burton Brown, promised her center-left candidates were the solution to winning in Colorado. She was wrong and so were those that supported this approach. And for 15 years now the Colorado Republican party leadership has repeatedly dismissed inspiring grassroots candidates.”

Wood expressed admiration for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters during the event, at which Peters also spoke. Peters, one of the state’s most prominent election deniers, is under felony indictment related to a security breach in her own elections office.

Anil Mathai, a former Adams County GOP chair, also spoke at the event.

“We have a Republican Party that is full of whores,” Mathai said, according to Colorado Politics. “They listened to the consultants, right? They keep telling you about messaging, right? They are liars — they have done something different. They have not held to the Republican platform, which is conservative. They’ve not held to the U.S. Constitution. And then you wonder why these asswipes can’t win a race.”

Wood is running on a platform that includes a call to “allow only registered Republicans to vote in Republican primaries.” Currently in Colorado unaffiliated voters can cast a ballot in either of the major-party primary elections, which some party purists complain can erode core party principles.

Wood would end party support of Republican candidates who petition onto a ballot without going through the caucus and assembly process. He would also, in line with the preference of election deniers, eliminate “electronic voting in party business and elections.”

The race for state GOP party chair has been notable for its failure so far to attract candidates widely viewed as viable. Colorado Republican strategist Sage Naumann told The Denver Post “only the insane, incapacitated or incompetent” would consider taking the position.

Three-time congressional candidate Casper Stockham announced his candidacy for the position. Other Republicans who have been mentioned as possible contenders for the leadership spot include Peters, former governor candidate Greg Lopez, and former state Rep. Dave Williams.

The state GOP’s central committee will select the chair in March.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

DENVER – Jenna Ellis, the Colorado attorney who represented former President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.

Ellis has been the target of formal complaints regarding what critics characterized as her professional misconduct connected to Trump’s effort to reverse the results of a free and fair election. In May a complaint from the States United Democracy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, asked Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel Jessica Yates to investigate Ellis for multiple alleged violations of professional rules and impose possible “substantial professional discipline.”

“The status of this complaint is that it is pending with our office,” Yates wrote to Newsline Friday in an emailed response to questions about the complaint.

The complaint had previously been reported. This is believed to be the first time the existence of an investigation of Ellis has been reported.

Attempts to reach Ellis for comment Friday, at “The Jenna Ellis Show” and elsewhere, were not successful.

Ellis appears among key Trump-aligned figures in the final report, released Thursday, of the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The report, which describes Ellis as deputy to Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani, concludes that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of a Trump-led “multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.”

Yates’ office is investigating Ellis based on the States United Democracy Center complaint. The complaint says “Ellis made numerous public misrepresentations alleging fraud in the election — even as federal and state election officials repeatedly found that no fraud had occurred that could have altered the outcome and even as Mr. Trump and his allies brought and lost over 60 lawsuits claiming election fraud or illegality.”

Among the many alleged instances of misconduct the complaint cites, it notes that Ellis urged lawmakers in various swing states to intervene on Trump’s behalf and even certify false electors for Trump, and it says she drafted dishonest memos purporting to give legal rationale for then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021.

Lawyers in Colorado are subject to the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct, and complaints are investigated by the attorney regulation counsel. If the counsel decides a case warrants prosecution, it’s heard and decided by the Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge. The judge could impose disciplinary measures, such as suspension of the attorney’s ability to practice law or disbarment.

“Ellis violated her professional obligations by knowingly providing objectively incorrect, false, and misleading legal advice that was designed to further Mr. Trump’s illegal schemes aimed at thwarting the count of electoral votes,” the States United Democracy Center complaint says.

In a deposition Ellis gave to the Jan. 6 committee in March, a transcript of which the committee released this week, she indicates that Colorado is the only state where she has bar membership. During the deposition a questioner referred to a $22,500 invoice Ellis submitted to Trump for work she performed in December 2020 and January 2021. Ellis invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer whether she received payment.

Ellis’ Colorado lawyer registration page on the Colorado Supreme Court website — she is listed as Jenna Lynn Rives — states that she works with the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based anti-abortion law firm. As of Friday, Ellis does not appear among the firm’s roster of attorneys, though she did appear there as recently as June.

This story was first published by Colorado Newsline, part of the States Newsroom network of news bureaus with the Louisiana Illuminator. It is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

Colorado Democrats have been so consumed with celebrating their abundant success and historic claim on power after last month’s midterm elections that scant attention has been paid to a massive loss among all the wins.

Voters in the 3rd Congressional District returned Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert to Congress. Plenty of coverage followed her unexpectedly close race, which she won by such a thin margin it triggered an automatic recount. But the coverage emphasized her vulnerability, and much of it characterized the race as a sort of win for Democratic challenger Adam Frisch, since few observers expected him to perform so well in a district that typically favors the GOP by 9 percentage points.

But the fact is that Boebert won, and her triumph is much more significant than her first electoral victory in 2020.

Republicans starting in January will assume majority control in the U.S. House, which naturally raises the profile of every House Republican, including Boebert. Furthermore, Boebert’s colleagues elected her to the 23-member House Republican Policy Committee, where she will help steer the direction of the whole GOP caucus in Congress.

Boebert isn’t just a member of Congress now. She’s a member with influence. No longer can Americans disregard her low-information, high-outrage performance as a reality TV character with a congressional pin. Now her presence in Washington, with all the disinformation and democracy-damaging activity that comes with it, is more dangerous than ever.

Any discussion of Boebert as an elected official must start with her acts of sedition and by observing that her very status as a trustee of public affairs is an affront to constitutional order. Boebert on Jan. 6, 2021, was a vocal member of the sedition caucus, that group of Republicans who voted to overturn electoral results on behalf of coup-plotting former President Donald Trump. There is a legitimate question — given her election denial activities and rhetoric around the insurrection — about whether Boebert is constitutionally prohibited from holding elective office at all. At least one American elected official recently was barred by a court for violating a 14th Amendment prohibition against engaging in insurrection.

But let’s put aside Boebert’s anti-American behavior and consider what policies she might pursue.

Start with her record. Boebert has sponsored 40 bills in her two years in Congress, according to a ProPublica database. None made it out of a House committee. None earned bipartisan support. Many are vain gestures with no basis in sound governance.

The first bill she ever introduced came in the midst of an early COVID-19 surge and would have banned mask mandates on federal property. It attracted zero co-sponsors. One of the most recent bills Boebert, a Second Amendment fundamentalist, introduced was the Shall Not Be Infringed Act, which would repeal the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a firearm safety bill passed in response to the mass shooting in Uvalde and Buffalo.

Several of her bills amount to pure performance, such as her bills to impeach President Joe Biden and designate “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. Other bills reflect her unflagging bigotry against the LGBTQ community, such as a bill that would ban federal funds for research on gender transitions in children and a bill that targeted the NCAA swimmer Lia Thomas, a trans woman whom the hateful Boebert went out of her way to misgender.

Boebert’s record voting on other lawmakers’ bills does little more to inspire confidence that she takes lawmaking seriously. She and MAGA-crazed Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia were the only two members of the House to vote against the reauthorization of a program that helps facilitate bone marrow transplants for leukemia and lymphoma patients.

But the best indicators of what to fear from Boebert as her power expands are the innumerable instances of reckless, immature and extremist behavior. Very soon after Boebert’s arrival in Washington, fellow members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, reportedly came to fear for their physical safety around her. Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is all too familiar with this drawback of proximity to Boebert — after Boebert made anti-Muslim comments about Omar, Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an extraordinary statement characterized Boebert’s rhetoric as “bigotry” and condemned it as “deeply offensive and concerning.” Omar herself viewed Boebert’s comments as “dangerous.” Boebert brought humiliation to Colorado when, like a detention-prone middle schooler, she heckled Biden during a State of the Union address.

When Boebert isn’t trying to own the libs, she’s often found advancing extreme positions, such as when in June she advised an audience, “The church is supposed to direct the government,” and complained, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution.” In September, she told another audience that “we are in the last of the last days” — that’s right, the literal rapture.

What will it mean for Colorado to have a bigoted, election-denying representative who believes the end times are imminent wielding power in Congress? You don’t need to be a prophet to know the state should brace for more exasperation, threats and embarrassment.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.