Quentin Young, Colorado Newsline

Democrats in the Colorado Legislature might finally succeed in passing groundbreaking restrictions on semiautomatic firearms.

They have introduced a bill that would ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that can accept detachable magazines. Numerous lawmakers have signed on, and the bill already cleared its first hurdle when it passed a Senate committee vote last week.

But Senate Bill 25-3 is an odd departure from previous efforts to regulate semiautomatic rifles. It purports to better enforce the intent of a law regarding high-capacity magazines. But the bill’s unusual provisions have caused some confusion about its practicality and potential impact, and its central restriction, as gun rights advocates have noted, raises a safety concern.

SB-3 might pass, and it might help save lives. But, at least at this stage of the bill’s progression, it has muddled lawmakers’ message on gun violence prevention.

During the 2023 legislative session, progressive Democrats for the first time introduced an assault weapons ban. It would have prohibited the making, buying and selling of assault weapons but not the possession of them. Supporters at the time argued that assault weapons are uniquely dangerous, partly because they accept detachable magazines, which allow shooters to easily reload, but also due to other features, such as the high velocity at which they fires bullets, which “damages and destroys tissues as it travels through the body,” according to the bill text.

Reporting by news outlets substantiated this characterization. “The AR-15 fires bullets at such a high velocity … that it can eviscerate multiple people in seconds,” The Washington Post reported in an extensive 2023 investigation. “A single bullet lands with a shock wave intense enough to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The impact is even more acute on the compact body of a small child.”

An AR-15-style assault weapon was used in most of the deadliest mass killings in America between 2012 and 2023, including two massacres in Colorado.

Eight House members and two senators signed on to the bill, which didn’t make it past its first committee hearing. But during last year’s legislative session, Democrats again introduced an assault weapons ban, and that one attracted many more House sponsors — 31 total — as well as a Senate sponsor. In a Colorado first, it passed the House chamber, before faltering in the Senate in the session’s last days. Supporters of the bill emphasized that assault rifles were “weapons of war” not fit for civilian use.

This year’s bill takes a different approach. It would ban the manufacture, sale, purchase and transfer of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns and gas-operated semiautomatic handguns that can accept detachable magazines. In other words, assault weapons would be allowed, as long as they have fixed magazines.

This sends a mixed message. Many of the Democratic lawmakers who signed onto it, such as prime sponsors Sen. Julie Gonzales and Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, also previously supported an assault weapons ban. Does that mean they changed their mind about the special menace posed by assault weapons? If assault weapons are “not suitable for self-defense and are not well-suited for hunting, sporting, or any purpose other than mass killing,” as the bill they sponsored last year asserted, what makes them less dangerous now?

They might respond that precluding a shooter’s ability to rapidly exchange magazines eliminates a measure of an assault weapon’s lethality. But even by their own account in previous bills, magazines were just one component that made assault weapons intolerably hazardous.

Plus, Colorado already has a ban on large-capacity magazines. Supporters of SB-3 say the bill would help officials enforce rules against large-capacity magazines, which experts say are still readily available in the state. But it’s not clear why an assault weapons ban, in addition to a large-capacity magazine ban, would not achieve the same result — fewer assault weapons would naturally mean fewer uses for illegal magazines.

The bill’s novelty is further cause to doubt its wisdom. Gun rights advocates note that manufacturers do not even produce the sort of fixed-magazine firearms the bill envisions. “These guns don’t exist,” Ava Flanell, a Colorado Springs firearms trainer, said in a recent podcast. Denver 7 reported that the measure is “the first of its kind in this country.”

This all raises serious questions about the bill’s capacity to withstand a legal challenge, given that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such laws must not stray from the historical tradition of U.S. gun regulation. It also engenders skepticism about the honesty of the Democrats’ pitch, since it gives credibility to opponents’ charge that their goal “is to ban the weapons outright.”

Moreover, the bill seems ignorant of a significant safety concern. Responsible firearm owners understand that a detachable magazine, whether in a pistol or AR-15, allows them to safely clear the gun and fix malfunctions. This deficiency in the bill is one of the reasons that Democratic Sen. Nick Hinrishsen publicly opposed the bill as drafted.

Colorado Democrats have succeeded in recent years in enacting significant gun violence prevention measures. An assault weapons ban was an important component of their efforts to protect residents from the slaughter they’ve seen in schools, theaters, grocery stores and other public places. Its trajectory was toward ultimate adoption. But they have abandoned that progress in exchange for an uncertain alternative.

Some families with students in Aurora Public Schools are worried they could be vulnerable to federal immigration enforcement, according to several community leaders who say that some schools have seen low attendance in recent days.

The fears come as the administration of Republican President Donald Trump fulfills his campaign promise to dramatically escalate enforcement against undocumented people, particularly in Aurora, the state’s third-biggest city, which Trump has targeted by name based on exaggerated or false information about migrant criminal activity.

The school district acknowledged student fears in a message it sent to school families Monday.

“Over the past week, we have heard that families may be concerned about sending students to school in light of recent changes to immigration enforcement that were announced,” the message said. “Please know that our schools are safe places for all students and families.”

Remarking on the message in a post on Facebook, Debbie Gerkin, a member of the Aurora school board, wrote, “We are prepared, but our stomachs are in a collective knot as we care for our students, families, and staff.”

The message might have failed to reassure some families. Bryan Lindstrom, a history teacher at Hinkley High School in Aurora, said attendance at the school is down.

“Our attendance is dramatically reduced in the last 10 days,” Lindstrom said Thursday. “Their parents are keeping them home because they don’t feel safe.”

The school’s student population is majority Latino, he said.

“The fear I am seeing and hearing in students is something I’ve never seen before,” said Lindstrom, who has taught at the school for 10 years. Lindstrom ran as a Democrat last year to represent House District 36 in the Colorado Legislature.

Messages to Aurora schools spokespeople were not returned Thursday.

Linnea Reed-Ellis, president of the Aurora Education Association, a teachers union, said some student families were concerned about coming to school, but she had not heard that attendance was significantly lower than usual.

Crystal Murillo, an Aurora City Council member and executive director of Colorado People’s Alliance, which supports immigrant justice, said she’s heard that classrooms at multiple Aurora schools across all grade levels have seen unusually low attendance in recent days, a phenomenon that’s being reported by teachers, paraeducators and even kitchen staff, she said.

“They’re very aware their classrooms are halfway empty,” Murillo said.

Contacted by Newsline, state Sen. Iman Jodeh and state Rep. Mandy Lindsay, Democrats who represent parts of Aurora, said they’ve also heard that attendance at the city’s schools is down.

According to district policy, school leaders will protect students and their information from federal inquiries, and immigration officers will be refused entry to schools unless they have a judicial warrant.

Aurora became a focus of the national debate on immigration last year after some Republican city officials amplified exaggerated and false claims, later repeated by President Donald Trump, that members of a Venezuelan gang had taken over parts of the city.

During a campaign rally in the city in October, Trump, in front of a backdrop that said “deport illegals now,” again used debunked gang takeover rhetoric and dubbed his immigration enforcement plan Operation Aurora.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said at a campaign rally in September. “And we’re going to start with Springfield (Ohio) and Aurora.”

On Sunday, federal law enforcement agents took almost 50 people, including many who were undocumented, into custody during a raid in Adams County. As of Thursday evening, details about the identities of the detainees, where they were held and whether any were charged with crimes had not been released.

Federal law enforcement agents announced that they took almost 50 people, including many who were undocumented, into custody Sunday in Adams County.

An operation that involved members of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Drug Enforcement Agency; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and local law enforcement targeted what officials said was drug trafficking that involved members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TdA.

“DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division has been investigating TdA drug trafficking since last summer, and today’s successful operation shows that the men and women of DEA will not rest until our communities are safe from this gang and the drugs they peddle,” Jonathan Pullen, a local DEA special agent in charge, said in a press release Sunday.

TdA has been at the center of a contentious debate about immigration in Colorado since some Republican city officials in Aurora last year amplified exaggerated and false claims, later repeated by President Donald Trump, that members of the gang had taken over parts of the city.

The site of the raid was an invite-only “makeshift nightclub” at 6600 Federal Boulevard, where “dozens” of TdA-connected people were present, according to federal officials, who characterized the event as a “Tren de Aragua (TdA) party.” More than 100 law enforcement personnel were involved in executing a federal search warrant in the 5 a.m. raid. They took 49 people into custody without incident. Officials said more than 40 of them were undocumented.

Officials said they seized cocaine, crack cocaine, and pink cocaine — also known as “tusi” — as well as “several weapons” and “a large amount of US currency.”

The Aurora Sentinel reported that about 40 people remained in ICE custody as of Sunday afternoon.

Trump has vowed to deport undocumented people “at a level nobody has ever seen before.” During a campaign rally in October in Aurora he falsely said that the city had been “invaded and conquered” by TdA. He said he planned to “hunt down, arrest and deport” undocumented immigrants connected to gangs and dubbed the plan Operation Aurora.

Donald Trump is ineligible to be president.

An impartial assessment of facts and law leads to that conclusion, according to some constitutional scholars.

There is little doubt that the Republican president-elect will be inaugurated in January, and there is no doubt that he won the November election. But his status as disqualified from the presidency was established by Colorado courts last year, and his inauguration will do nothing to change that.

The Colorado case resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against state enforcement of his ineligibility. But the court didn’t deny his ineligibility, and enforcement mechanisms remain a debated matter. Some constitutional scholars view the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2025, when members will certify electoral votes, as an opening for congressional enforcement.

That means the U.S. House and Senate members from Colorado, where Trump’s disqualification was affirmed after lengthy legal proceedings, more than any of their colleagues must carefully consider what the law demands.

There is virtually no chance that the state’s four congressional Republicans, who belong to a party that is now an authoritarian personality cult, can be persuaded to put the Constitution over party. But Congress’ six Colorado Democrats, as they participate in the certification process, have a special responsibility to weigh their oath to the Constitution and their role in protecting democracy from an administration bent on crushing it.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, says no person who took an oath to support the Constitution then “engaged in insurrection” can hold any office in the United States. Last year, a group of Colorado voters sued in Denver District Court to block Trump from the Colorado ballot. They argued the insurrection clause clearly applied to him. The case made its way to the Colorado Supreme Court, which sided with the plaintiffs and blocked Trump from the ballot. A majority of justices agreed with the lower court that “the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, constituted an ‘insurrection'” and that “President Trump ‘engaged in’ that insurrection through his personal actions.”

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Colorado ruling, but that outcome was based on the high court’s reasoning that states do not have authority to enforce Section 3 against federal candidates for office. If the justices thought Trump was innocent of engaging in insurrection, they could have said so, but they didn’t. Left in place was the Colorado Supreme Court’s judgment that Trump engaged in insurrection in violation of Section 3.

What remains is the question of enforcement.

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s “per curiam,” or unsigned, ruling in the case, Trump v. Anderson, a majority of the justices had much to say about how “responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States.”

But, according to two of the nation’s preeminent Section 3 scholars, a close reading of the opinion shows that it could allow for a range of possible enforcement mechanisms.

“All it said was that the Fourteenth Amendment confers enforcement power on Congress, that this power could appropriately be used to specify how Section 3 is applied, and that such power was important as a practical matter,” write professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen in an upcoming paper, a draft of which was published online in October. “Nowhere does the per curiam say that congressional legislation … is required or is a condition of Section Three’s status as law.”

Baude and Paulsen, who have long argued that Trump is disqualified from the presidency and can’t lawfully serve in the office, are widely regarded as experts’ experts on Section 3. They add this about Jan. 6, 2025: “The decision in Trump v. Anderson also does not limit whatever powers the two houses of Congress might properly possess when meeting in joint session pursuant to the procedures established by the Twelfth Amendment to decline to count votes cast by Electors for a presidential candidate who is constitutionally disqualified by Section Three.”

The Yale constitutional law scholar and historian Akhil Amar, who filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case, said during a podcast last month that a “conscientious” member of Congress could choose to reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025.

“The Constitution ultimately makes the Congress, in joint session when it’s opening these electoral votes, they’re the ones who actually have to decide whether these electoral votes are validly given,” he said.

Similar views are shared by other well-known legal scholars, such as Laurence Tribe, who in a social media post last month after Trump was elected wrote that “as an adjudicated oath-breaking insurrectionist, Mr. Trump is constitutionally disqualified under Sec. 3 of 14th Am.”

A rejection of electoral votes in several weeks would be entirely different than the rejection of electoral votes for President Joe Biden by some Republicans in January 2021. In that case, the basis for rejection was the lie that Trump had won the election, while the basis for rejection next month is the truth that Trump is ineligible to hold the office of the presidency.

Members of Congress from Colorado can read findings, which corroborate what they saw with their own eyes during the insurrection, in opinions produced after lengthy witness testimony and exhaustive briefings by courts in their own state.

These matters of law and fact that remain factors as they perform their role in certifying the election.

A one-day trial over whether election machines in 34 Colorado counties should be shut down took place in Denver District Court on Monday, a day before the general election.

Decision 2024: On-the-ground election coverage in Colorado and by local reporters in all 50 states. Fair. Fearless. Free.

At issue was a massive leak of hundreds of election equipment passwords, which were inadvertently exposed for months on the website of the Colorado secretary of state.

Judge Kandace C. Gerdes, at the end of a hearing that began shortly after 1:30 p.m. and lasted well past 5 p.m., heard witness testimony and opening and closing remarks from the two sides before announcing she would review the material before her and issue a written order “in due course.”

Plaintiffs argued that election computers in affected counties were at risk of being compromised and should not be trusted to produce accurate election results. They want the court to order hand counts in those counties.

“There’s a security risk and there’s not enough time to figure it out,” Gary Fielder, attorney for the plaintiffs, said.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in Denver District Court by the Libertarian Party of Colorado; James Wiley, the Libertarian candidate for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District seat; and Hannah Goodman, the Libertarian Party state chair and the Libertarian candidate for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District seat. Jena Griswold, the Democratic secretary of state, and Chris Beall, the deputy secretary of state, are the defendants.

Griswold, as well as Republican and Democratic election officials throughout Colorado and other election experts, have expressed confidence that the Colorado general election Tuesday remains secure.

Griswold acknowledged Oct. 29 that the passwords were hidden but accessible on a spreadsheet posted online. The leak involved Basic Input Output System — or BIOS — passwords, which provide access to the basic functioning of a computer system. Griswold said she’d known about the leak starting Oct. 24, but county clerks, who administer elections throughout the state, weren’t informed about it until five days later.

In a press release Monday, the secretary’s office offered new details about the leak of passwords. The office said the passwords were exposed starting June 21, meaning they were accessible online when Colorado’s June 25 primary election took place. More than 600 passwords in 63 of the state’s 64 counties were exposed, but the secretary determined election equipment in 34 counties were affected by the leak, since some of the exposed passwords had already been updated and were not listed on the spreadsheet.

Colorado officials said Friday that state employees had completed the process of updating passwords on election equipment in affected counties.

The press release said the secretary of state first learned of the leak from “a voting machines vendor.”

Shawn Smith testifies he found the leak

The leak was revealed publicly in a mass email from the Colorado Republican Party, which said it learned of the leak after an unnamed person sent to the party an affidavit attesting to how the person discovered it.

That person turned out to have been Shawn Smith, a Teller County election conspiracist and retired Air Force colonel who was a key witness for the plaintiffs in the trial Monday. Smith testified that he discovered the exposed passwords after he downloaded on Oct. 23 a spreadsheet posted on the secretary of state’s website that contains an inventory, which the secretary is required to maintain, of voting system components used throughout the state. He said he has downloaded the Excel document “30 to 40 times” as part of his “election integrity” activities. But the next day, he noticed the passwords for the first time.

“On the 24th I noticed that there were hidden worksheets at the bottom of the page. You can right-click on the active, visible worksheet … you can select ‘unhide,’ it would pop up with a list of hidden worksheets.”

He located a column labeled “BIOS passwords” with the passwords listed.

Smith runs an “election integrity” organization, Cause of America, for Mike Lindell, the former President Donald Trump ally who has long been vocal in baselessly denying the results of the 2020 election.

In 2022, Smith suggested Griswold should hang for election fraud. A Colorado Newsline investigation that year revealed that he was part of the pro-Trump mob that clashed with police during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Plaintiff witness Clay Parikh, a cybersecurity expert who also has ties to Lindell’s election-denial activities, testified that the leaked passwords present a “serious security breach.”

Asked by Fielder if there is now “a possibility of compromising the voting system in Colorado,” Parikh responded, “There’s a very high likelihood,” given the amount of time the passwords were exposed and “the vulnerabilities of the overall system.”

But Beall in his testimony, though he acknowledged the leak was “significant,” rejected the suggestion that a person in possession of the leaked passwords could change the operation of election systems.

“There is fundamentally no way that a password disclosure could be exploited in our scenario,” he said.

This is due to the “layers of security” in place around election administration in the state, he said.

State election officials have said that a person must be physically present to gain BIOS access, and election equipment is required to be kept in a secure environment. Ballots in the state are cast on paper, which can be audited after an election to ensure accuracy.

LeeAnn Morrill, first assistant state attorney general, who represented Griswold and Beall during the trial, said, “We do not think there is any factual or legal basis for this court to award the extraordinary and unprecedented relief that the petitioners seek.”

“It cannot be overstated the chaos” that would come from shutting down voting system equipment, Morrill argued. Far from protecting the election, she said, it would instead “inject unknown procedures at the last minute that petitioners have essentially made up and asked the court to order.”

All active registered voters in Colorado receive a mail ballot. Ballots were sent out starting Oct. 11. As of midday Monday, more than 2 million of the roughly 4 million active registered voters in the state had already returned their ballot.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

In announcing former President Donald Trump’s visit to Aurora, the Trump campaign framed the Republican presidential candidate’s purpose in terms of crime-fighting.

The Biden administration’s border policies, it claimed, had left Colorado’s third biggest city vulnerable to criminal migrants who had turned “once-safe communities into nightmares for law-abiding citizens.” Trump, the announcement said, would deport these “criminals” and “Make America Safe Again.”

Most Americans realized long ago that Trump is bereft of normal regulating attributes like consistency and shame. Embarrassment might restrain most felons from reckless criminal accusations against others. Not Trump. And it matters even less to him that his bleak characterization of Aurora, where he is scheduled to speak Friday, is a complete fabrication.

But law-abiding citizens should take his preposterous rhetoric as an occasion to reflect on the breathtaking scale of banditry that is a fundamental quality of Trumpist politics. Any policy that purports to make America safe again would have to address MAGA’s violent tendencies and pattern of criminal behavior.

One of the most dumbfounding moments of the 2024 election cycle in Colorado came during a candidate forum in January, when the simultaneous admission by two-thirds of the Republicans on stage that they had arrest records produced not a moment of humility and regret but rather hilarity fit for a saloon.

Among them was Lauren Boebert, a sitting member of Congress, who is scheduled to appear in Aurora with Trump. Two were state lawmakers, and all were seeking to represent the residents of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the nation’s capital. Their brushes with the law generated no detectable reservations, in the audience or on the stage, about their fitness for office.

This expression of lawlessness was audaciously hypocritical for the erstwhile party of law and order, whose members reflexively engage in “crime wave” fearmongering, particularly in relation to immigration.

The current representative of the 4th District, MAGA Republican Greg Lopez, recently delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. House in which he, like Trump, claimed that Venezuelan criminals were terrorizing Aurora. Just about the whole thing was false, but what is true is that Lopez himself has a criminal record. He and his wife each pleaded guilty to harassment after a domestic violence incident in 1994. Lopez was the mayor of Parker at the time.

The Colorado pattern aligns with the MAGA evolution of the Republican Party. No past presidency in U.S. history compares with the Trump administration’s record of wrongdoing. At least eight close Trump associates have been sentenced to prison. Many more in his orbit have been convicted of crimes, been indicted on criminal charges, or faced formal disciplinary action, such as former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, whose Colorado law license was suspended after she pleaded guilty in Georgia to a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

Though previous Republican administrations produced rafts of law-breakers — Nixon-era Watergate indictments numbered in the dozens — Trump wins criminal gold for being the first president to achieve felon status. He faces felony criminal charges in two other pending cases, and a jury in a civil lawsuit determined he raped a woman. One of the criminal cases against him relates to his role in the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, which Trump was impeached for inciting and in which more than a thousand people have been criminally convicted of participating.

When Trump appears in Aurora, he will be by far the most consequential criminal ever to set foot in the city.

Aurora found itself in the national spotlight after conservative local figures, particularly City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, spread the false claim that Venezuelan gang members had assumed control of several apartment buildings in Aurora. The city’s own police chief debunked the claim, and even Jurinsky has walked back some of her rhetoric. But national right-wing media went with it regardless of facts, and Trump seized on it as an anti-immigration campaign talking point. He mentioned Aurora last month during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, and later promised he would visit Aurora, maligning the whole city by suggesting it is so dangerous, “you may never see me again.”

Aurora police recently have arrested a handful of people who they identified as Venezuelan gang members, and Aurorans should be grateful for this routine local law enforcement response.

But the suspects had not taken over any part of the city. And whatever threat they posed to the community is dwarfed by the menace the Trump gang poses to the country.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

Former President Donald Trump plans to visit Aurora, a city he’s falsely said has been overrun by violent migrant gang members.

An announcement on the Republican presidential nominee’s website indicates Trump plans to speak during an event at 1 p.m. Friday at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.

Aurora became a focus of national attention in recent weeks after local conservative officials, including City Council member Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman, amplified claims that Venezuelan gang members had taken over several apartment buildings in the city. Jurinsky said during an appearance on Fox News that the gang members had undertaken “a complete gang takeover in parts of our city.”

The city’s own police chief debunked the claims, and the officials later walked back the most sensational rhetoric. But Trump seized on it as an anti-immigration campaign talking point, and alluded to it last month during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate. Later, during a Sept. 18 rally in New York, he said he would visit Aurora within two weeks.

Coffman, a Republican, told CBS News that he welcomed Trump’s visit.

“If he comes here, I see it as an opportunity to show him the city and break the narrative that this city is out of control when it comes to Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman told the outlet.

The chair of the Colorado Democratic Party said in a statement late Monday that a Trump visit to Aurora could help doom Republican candidates in the state.

“Coloradans aren’t fooled: Trump isn’t coming to Aurora to talk about lifting up working people and creating a safer, more prosperous America; Trump is coming to spew hatred and division that’s not reflective of the Colorado we fight for every day,” Murib said. “Hopefully he plays his greatest hits before his supporters start leaving the rally early, per usual.”

A spokesperson for the Colorado Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

When the CELL first opened in 2008, Melanie Pearlman, the executive director, remarked to a Denver Post reporter that the exhibit transcended partisanship. Everyone could agree, after all, that terrorism should be countered.

“It can’t be taken to a partisan level,” Pearlman said.

Turns out, it can.

Rudy Giuliani got a private pre-opening tour of the exhibit. Those being simpler times, the Post referred to him as a “dignitary.” This was a sign from the future that aversion to terrorism is not exactly universal, since Giuliani would be a key figure 12 years later in a president’s attempted coup — a spectacular demonstration that many Americans are OK with violent extremism when it’s pursued by partisan allies.

The problem for the CELL, a permanent exhibit in downtown Denver on terrorism and violent extremism, is that partisanship has crept into its own mission.

Jan. 6 was one of the most consequential acts of anti-government domestic terrorism in U.S. history. A mob vowing to hang the vice president came within 40 feet of its mark after violently breaching security at the U.S. Capitol.

And yet the CELL — Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab — treats the day as if it were just one of the many regrettable instances of extremism that plague the world, not all that unlike far-left protests in Portland, arson during Black Lives Matter protests, or the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Worse, it almost entirely relieves former President Donald Trump of responsibility.

It might have been easy for the CELL to deal frankly with post-9/11 terrorism. Now that the standard bearer of a major political party is the spearhead of extremists, it finds itself incapable of telling the truth.

None of this would matter much, except the CELL commands outsize influence. It’s located in the heart of the city, across a plaza from the Denver Art Museum. When it reopened in May after a renovation, top political figures in the state — “dignitaries,” if you will — were on hand to celebrate. They included Gov. Jared Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston. It boasts an A-list speaker series, which features defense secretaries, White House advisors, top military commanders, members of Congress, national journalists and other notables. It offers a terrorism preparedness program developed with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that it says has trained more than 100,000 people in more than 75 municipalities.

What it says carries weight. So what does it say?

The CELL educates visitors on the causes of violent extremism, the impact of it, and how we can combat it. The exhibit comprises images, audio, interactive displays and interpretative stations. Sept. 11 has an appropriately large presence, but the exhibit ranges far and wide. Richard Spencer, Hezbollah, Timothy McVeigh, Anwar al-Awlaki, The Weather Underground, ISIS, left-wing, right-wing, foreign, domestic — it covers a lot of terrorism ground.

But none of these figures and groups managed to breach security at the seat of American democracy. No other act of terror was incited by a sitting U.S. president. Never before Jan. 6 had democracy in the U.S. come so close to demolition. And you’d never grasp the gravity of the insurrection from the CELL’s account of it.

The exhibit addresses Jan. 6 at a single video station on domestic terrorism, and a segment on the attack is only 1 of 7 short videos. It mentions that Trump on the morning of the Capitol attack “reiterated false claims of a stolen presidential election” and exhorted supporters to “fight back,” but it shifts blame for the attack to extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and says nothing about how the stop-the-steal movement was generated and stoked by the former president.

Was Jan. 6 even an act of terrorism? The CELL, by discussing it, thinks so, even if it botches the presentation. One of the most authoritative voices on this matter is a Trump appointee, Christopher Wray, director of the FBI.

“That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” Wray told Congress

But many Americans, even if they agree that Jan. 6 was a form of terror, find it too awkward or painful to acknowledge what caused it, though the facts could not be more clear. Trump originated the lie that he had won the 2020 election. He gave encouragement to violent extremists. He called for supporters to join him Jan. 6, 2021, for a “wild” event. He fueled the Capitol mob even after it had broken into the building. He incited the attack as part of a multi-pronged attempted coup. He caused it. It’s well documented.

The CELL’s whole mission is to explain this. Any attempt to understand why it can’t has to note the political inclinations of Denver homebuilder Larry Mizel.

The exhibit opened as a subsidiary of the Mizel Museum, which highlights Jewish culture and heritage. Mizel co-founded that institution, and he sits on the CELL board of directors. He is also among the most influential Trump champions in Colorado. He was Trump’s Colorado fundraising chairman in 2016. In August, Mizel co-hosted a fundraiser for Trump in Aspen, and he’s reportedly planning to host a visit to Denver by Trump running mate J.D. Vance next month.

Given Mizel’s post-coup-attempt allegiance to Trump, it would be surprising if his terrorism museum could be forthright about the former president’s treachery. Newsline asked a CELL spokesperson questions about how it treats Trump’s role in the attack on the Capitol and the nature of Mizel’s influence on the exhibit but did not receive a response.

This all reflects how Trump has deranged an entire society. He made it impossible for otherwise norm-respecting, law-abiding conservatives to find their moral bearings, and he forced even antagonists into fits of hypocrisy.

How else does this coup plotter get invited to a CNN town hall? How else does a former Trump cabinet member confess his boss was “off the rails” yet will vote for him again. How else does the Democratic presidential candidate bring herself to shake this felon’s hand on a debate stage? How else does the Democratic governor of Colorado promote an institution that launders the reputation of an authoritarian poised to seize power.

Republican operatives are again preparing to reject unfavorable election results in November. This is an active threat, and there is every reason to expect that the same forces that sparked terrorism after the last presidential election will do it again.

The CELL could empower visitors to combat the threat of violent extremism just months away. Its dishonesty about Jan. 6 does the opposite.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

Hope Scheppelman, who was elected vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party in August 2023, has received death threats and other forms of harassment by phone starting in late July, Scheppelman reported to the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.

The harassing calls began July 22 and continued periodically at least until Aug. 10, according to what Scheppelman told a sheriff’s deputy on Aug. 12. The deputy documented information from Scheppelman in an incident report obtained by Newsline.

“Threats have been made against Hope’s life and her husband’s life,” the report says. “Initially, the harassing phone calls were name calling and telling Hope to jump off a bridge.”

A caller at one point “began to identify things on Hope’s property.” Scheppelman, a Bayfield resident, told the deputy she tracked the phone number of one of the calls to Miami.

Scheppelman said that the calls came from two different people named Betsy and that one was named Betsy Freedom, according to the report.

The La Plata deputy reported that an attempt to tie the source of the harassment to a Durango resident, who has a name that’s similar to the other Betsy who Scheppelman identified, did not lead to a suspect.

Scheppelman told Newsline on Friday that “there is an investigation going on” related to Betsy Freedom.

“My life has been threatened and my family’s life has been threatened by this individual,” Scheppelman said. She declined to speak further about the matter, citing the investigation.

Scheppelman is embroiled in a leadership dispute with some members of the Colorado Republican Party. A vote by the party’s central committee Saturday ousted her from leadership — along with the chair, former state Rep. Dave Williams, and secretary, Anna Ferguson — and installed new leaders. The two factions both say they’re the legitimate leaders of the party, and the results of a lawsuit over the opposing claims, as well as guidance from the Republican National Committee, is expected to settle the matter.

The actual identity of Betsy Freedom has been a recent topic of speculation among Scheppelman opponents. A Betsy Freedom from Pueblo on Facebook, whose political interests appear to align with Scheppelman’s, in a recent post used first-person language to describe performing the duties of the vice chair of the Colorado GOP.

Scheppelman posted on Facebook that Freedom “impersonated” her.

Newsline sent Betsy Freedom a message on Facebook but had not received a response by the time of publication. No Betsy Freedom is registered to vote in Colorado, and a Betsy Freedom in Pueblo did not emerge in a search of other public records.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

More than three years after Tina Peters took part in a scheme to prove a false theory of fraud in her own elections office, the former Mesa County clerk has been held to account.

As of this week, Peters is a felon. She gave a California man access to some of the most sensitive data on her county’s election machines and deceived state public officials about his identity. A Grand Junction jury found that the 68-year-old Republican election denier’s actions constituted serious crimes and pronounced her guilty on seven counts.

Peters is Colorado’s most notorious “big lie” believer, and her place in the firmament of MAGA bandits was cemented by national press attention and her association with prominent election conspiracists like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. This week’s verdict advances the country’s reckoning with the harm that came from misinformation around the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won. It joins the suspension in May of former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis’ law license in Colorado, as well as the criminal prosecution of those accused of interfering in the election on Trump’s behalf around the country, in reassuring Americans that their institutions, in some cases, are still capable of impartial feats of democracy and justice.

And there is reason to believe more criminal charges could come Peters’ way.

What happened in Mesa County has been the subject of a yearslong federal investigation on top of the local district attorney’s investigation that brought Peters to trial in recent weeks. Federal authorities have communicated very little about the case, but we know the federal probe persisted to this year from other sources.

It started in 2021, when FBI agents executed search warrants at Peters’ home and the homes of several of her associates, including conspiracist Sherronna Bishop, who during the trial was portrayed as a Peters go-between for national election-denying operators. In September 2022, FBI agents in Minnesota working on the Mesa County investigation seized Lindell’s phone. As late as January, Peters’ lawyers in a document filed with the U.S. appellate court in Denver said, “The Department of Justice, including the FBI, has continued its investigation to determine if any federal crime had been committed by Peters.”

An FBI spokesperson this week declined to comment on the case, as did a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver.

There appear to be several potential criminal charges of interest to federal authorities, as well as several possible targets. The state case against Peters, brought by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, largely focused on her dishonesty, such as when she presented to state election officials the California man, conspiracist Conan Hayes, as Gerald Wood, a Fruita resident who had been approved to enter secure elections areas in Peters’ office.

Peters allowed Hayes, who used Wood’s access badge, into the secure area in May 2021. A substantial amount of sensitive data from election system computers then made it into the hands of unauthorized people, and some of it was posted on the internet.

The Mesa County grand jury indictment that led to Peters’ conviction implies that prosecutors thought computer crimes had occurred.

“The public dissemination of this sensitive information constituted an unauthorized data breach,” the indictment said. “The compromised sensitive data included images depicting a proprietary hard drive with unlawfully downloaded/imaged software from Mesa County’s election management server’s hard drive.”

But while the state prosecution avoided potential culpability related to computer activity in the charges it brought, it can’t be ruled out as the basis for possible federal allegations.

We have clues about how federal authorities view the matter. The FBI’s search warrants for Bishop and Lindell both pointed to parts of federal law related to intentional damage to a protected computer and conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer. The warrants also variously cite identity theft, conspiracy to commit identity theft, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and the Lindell search warrant mentions as “co-conspirators” Peters, Bishop, Hayes, Lindell and others.

Dan Hartman, an attorney for Peters, told Newsline this week that he does not expect federal charges to emerge for his client.

But even if Peters or others who were involved in the Mesa County election security breach face federal charges, no degree of accountability in the case can satisfy the nation’s need for justice so long as the person ultimately responsible goes unpunished.

What occurred in Peters’ election office can be traced directly back to the early morning hours after Election Day 2020 at the White House, when Trump said, “This is a fraud on the American public … Frankly, we did win this election.”

The “big lie” was born at that moment, leading to incalculable legal and political wreckage, including the Jan. 6 insurrection, that will only deepen as the next presidential election approaches.

America’s institutions might have proved effective in checking some of Trump’s followers, but they have crumbled before Trump himself.

The verdict achieved in Mesa County this week is a triumph for the community. But Peters played only a small part in a much larger offense for which accountability has proved elusive.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

Project 2025 is one of the most pernicious plans for an American presidential administration ever conceived, not just for what it is but also for how it might be implemented.

Its far-right policy prescriptions could transform the federal government into a MAGA instrument of authoritarianism. Many of them are in fact familiar planks that have been recycled through decades of hardline conservative platforms. But in Project 2025 they’ve taken on an America-First snarl and sweep, and they would be most destructive in the hands of an unscrupulous second Trump administration.

Equally alarming is that Project 2025’s authors appear prepared to use violence to realize its vision.

“We are in the process of the Second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” warned Kevin Roberts, president of Project 2025 creator The Heritage Foundation, during an appearance this month on Real America’s Voice’s “War Room.”

Project 2025 includes a volume of policy goals more than 900 pages long known as the “Mandate for Leadership.” The document is the latest edition of the “Mandate,” which the organization first published in 1981 as a roadmap for the new Reagan administration. Heritage has updated it roughly every four years ever since. It was estimated that two-thirds of its recommendations were adopted in Reagan’s first year in office, and there is every reason to expect the latest version to guide former President Donald Trump, if he wins reelection, to a comparable extent.

This formidable legacy of influence can be traced back to a person whose name is well known to Coloradans: Coors.

Joe Coors was the grandson of brewer Adolph Coors. Though his family is famous for building one of Colorado’s most successful business empires, Joe Coors’ most consequential efforts came in conservative politics. He hitched himself early to Reagan, having cast a vote for the future president as a Republican delegate from Colorado at the 1968 Republican National Convention.

Over the next several years, he was among a group of conservatives who saw the need for a right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C., and, with $250,000 in seed money from Coors, the Heritage Foundation was born in 1973. Coors, commonly called Heritage’s founder, provided the think tank an annual grant of $300,000 for years.

“There wouldn’t be a Heritage Foundation without Joe Coors,” former Heritage president Edwin J. Feulner said.

Heritage was just one of many conservative Coors creations. He was instrumental in starting the Free Congress Foundation think tank, the Mountain States Legal Foundation law firm, and the Denver-based Independence Institute think tank.

He wasn’t just a money man. The same policies pushed by Heritage in the original “Mandate” he would advocate through what The Guardian termed “backstairs influence.” Coors was a member of Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet” of advisors, and he engineered the appointment of a fellow Coloradan, Anne Gorsuch, mother of a future Supreme Court justice, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which she set out to dismantle from the inside.

“The conservative movement simply would not exist in the form it does today without the profound influence of Joe Coors,” the Wall Street Journal said in an obituary when Coors died at 85 in 2003.

One theme that threads through Heritage projects, and which could be the most malign quality of a second Trump administration, is a push to deconstruct the administrative state. This was a goal in the 1981 “Mandate,” and it’s a defining feature of the current plan. Project 2025 would impose a new Schedule F employment category to install Trump loyalists in tens of thousands of positions that otherwise are filled based on merit. Government agencies would be reprogrammed to serve the interests of the president, not the people, and where once professionals and experts worked for the public good now legions of toadies would carry out whatever authoritarian order came down from the Oval Office, however unconstitutional or corrupt. This is the main Heritage method for “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Heritage agitates for the wholesale reduction of the federal government. The Department of Education should be “completely restructured,” Heritage said in 1981.

Today it says the department should be “eliminated.”

Several passages from the modern “Mandate” are of particular concern to Coloradans, especially in a section on the Department of the Interior. The section was written by Reagan administration veteran William Perry Pendley, an Evergreen resident who was Trump’s acting director of the Bureau of Land Management and is a former president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

In general Pendley wants to see the government wring economic benefit out of public lands, primarily through fossil fuel extraction, and he would roll back the withdrawal of federal lands from mineral extraction in the Thompson Divide.

Under Trump, the BLM relocated its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction, a move the Biden administration reversed. Pendley calls for the headquarters to be moved back West, and he lauds supposed advantages of the Grand Junction site.

Pendley suggests that the first national monument designated by Biden, the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado, could be reduced — “adjusted downward,” in his parlance — under a new Trump administration, and he writes that the Antiquities Act of 1906, under which Biden made the designation, should be repealed.

Elsewhere, in a section on the Department of Transportation, the document implies that the Federal Railroad Administration is misspending money at the Transportation Technology Center, a federal testing and training facility in Pueblo, and suggests research funds should be pulled from the facility.

A section on the Department of Commerce calls for the federal government to “break up” and downsize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has a substantial presence and provides many jobs in Boulder. Project 2025 disdains NOAA as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and says its “functions could be provided commercially, likely at lower cost and higher quality.”

The larger goals of the “Mandate” are at least as much of a threat to Coloradans as to every other American. It would give more control to Trump over the Department of Justice, crack down on immigration, revoke federal approval of the abortion pill, and police women who seek out-of-state abortions. The authors envision a country where pornography is outlawed, Christian faith is elevated, and the traditional family unit is at the center of American life.

“Marriage. Family. Work. Church. School. Volunteering.” Those are the “building blocks of any healthy society,” Roberts tells us in the foreword.

In “The Coors Connection,” a 1988 book about how the Coors family’s philanthropic products, such as The Heritage Foundation, “undermines democratic pluralism,” Russ Bellant wrote, “The Coors family funds ‘pro-family’ organizations which advocate maintaining a rigid social order in the midst of a society experiencing rapid change. They support groups which lament the breakdown of what is called the traditional American family, where the mother raises the children and the father earns their living … The Coors family funds organizations which believe in Christian, segregated schools,” and it has supported groups that “have called for the abolition of American democracy and the establishment of a theocratic state.”

The goals of the American far-right haven’t changed much, but in Trump it might have found its most effective vehicle yet. Joe Coors no doubt would have been very pleased.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

Dave Williams, chair of the Colorado Republican Party, is suing two party officials who are leading an effort to oust him.

The lawsuit, filed in Arapahoe County District Court, asks the court to prevent Nancy Pallozzi and Todd Watkins from misrepresenting official party business. It comes after Watkins called a meeting for July 27, when members of the party’s central committee would vote on whether to remove Williams and other party officials from leadership positions. Party executives determined last week that the meeting is “illegal.”

Watkins is vice chair of the El Paso County Republican Party. Pallozzi is chair of the Jefferson County Republican Party.

State party leaders determined the Watkins-called meeting is invalid according to state law and party bylaws, but state law is silent on how the party can enforce the decision against “noncompliant members,” the lawsuit says. It asks the court to step in.

“Here, particularly amidst the political climate and looming elections of 2024, the irreparable harm to (the party) should rogue party members against whom a final judgment which bars them from misrepresenting themselves as conducting official (party) business has already been rendered, is facially self-evident.”

Pallozzi told Newsline in an interview Friday that the July 27 meeting is still on.

Colorado Politics first reported the lawsuit.

The primary complaints from those looking to unseat Williams are that he did not relinquish his position as head of the party when he entered a race for Congress, even though the dual positions created a conflict of interest; that the state party under his leadership eliminated a tradition of neutrality in primary races and instead endorsed Williams and other favored candidates; that the state party spent money on behalf of Williams in his primary race against a fellow Republican; and that the state party under Williams has engaged in anti-LGBTQ and other messaging that could alienate voters.

Williams lost the June 25 primary election in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. A day later, the organizers of the effort to oust him submitted a petition and request for a vote on removing him as head of the party.

Party bylaws say that if at least a quarter of voting members in the GOP’s central committee sign onto a request for a special meeting, the meeting must be called within 10 days of the request and held within 30 days of the call. If the chairman doesn’t call a meeting, any voting member can do so, according to the bylaws.

Pallozzi — who specified that she was speaking to a reporter in her personal capacity and not on behalf of the Jefferson County Republicans — said many of the more than 100 Republicans who signed the petition to call a vote on Williams’ status have been “threatened” by supporters of Williams.

“They’re bullying people and they’re nasty. And it’s turning out to be a very sad situation,” she said.

Asked if she personally received bullying communication, Pallozzi said, “Oh, yes, absolutely.”

“As a person, I felt I did what I needed to do, and I don’t regret what I did, and I would do it again if I had to just to save what’s happening here in our state with the Republican Party,” she said.

Williams did not immediately reply to a request for comment. An attempt to reach Watkins was unsuccessful.

The lawsuit recounts that Pallozzi in early June sent an email to party members from a party-owned platform demanding Williams’ resignation and threatening a vote to oust him. She also solicited signatures for a petition to call a vote on removing Williams. Her own county party’s executive committee censured her, saying her actions regarding Williams were “null and void and all the results and/or consequences are revoked and retracted, including petitions, surveys, etc.”

Pallozzi said that while she used the party email platform to distribute a link to collect petition signatures, the link went to a personal Google sheet. Other people also collected signatures that were compiled in that document, she said.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

The head of a faction of Colorado Republicans insists that a scheduled vote on whether to oust state party leaders is legal, even as party leaders say otherwise.

In a message to the group of party members that governs the party, Todd Watkins on Wednesday said the July 27 meeting is still on. Party executives determined last week that the meeting is “illegal.”

“I assure you that the meeting was legally and properly called in accordance with our bylaws and procedures,” Watkins, vice chair of the El Paso County Republican Party and a State Central Committee member, said in an email to members of the committee. “Contrary to claims made in recent emails and other communications, the State Executive Committee does not have the authority to unilaterally declare this meeting illegal or cancel it.”

The legality of the meeting was confirmed by legal experts, who are unnamed, Watkins said in the email.

The central item on the meeting agenda is a vote on whether to boot former state Rep. Dave Williams as chair of the Colorado Republican Party. Members would also vote on retention of other party officers.

The primary complaints from those looking to unseat Williams are that he did not relinquish his position as head of the party when he entered a race for Congress, even though the dual positions created a conflict of interest; that the state party under his leadership eliminated a tradition of neutrality in primary races and instead endorsed Williams and other favored candidates; that the state party spent money on behalf of Williams in his primary race against a fellow Republican; and that the state party under Williams has engaged in anti-LGBTQ and other messaging that could alienate voters.

Williams lost the June 25 primary election in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. A day later, the Republican organizers of the effort to oust him submitted a petition and request for a vote on removing him as head of the party.

Party bylaws say that if at least a quarter of voting members in the GOP’s central committee sign onto a request for a special meeting, the meeting must be called within 10 days of the request and held within 30 days of the call. If the chairman doesn’t call a meeting, any voting member can do so, according to the bylaws.

In response to the petition, state party executives had originally called a meeting for Friday. They planned to gavel in and “immediately recess” so the meeting could be reconvened Aug. 31. But now even the Friday meeting is canceled, since party executives subsequently determined the petition and request was invalid. An executive committee decision document, shared by Williams with Newsline, says party officials were unable to properly verify the names of voting members who signed onto the special meeting request.

“The State Executive Committee found that Watkins had no authority to call a special meeting and his special meeting notice is invalid. Any potential meeting he holds as a result of his invalid petition submission is illegal,” the document says.

The executive committee made the decision after party members Tim Leonard and Ted Harvey formally challenged the validity of the Watkins-led call for a special meeting.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.

Jeff Crank beat former state Rep. Dave Williams in the Colorado Republican primary election in the congressional district that covers Colorado Springs, according to The Associated Press.

Williams is the chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

The 5th District seat is being vacated by U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who announced in January he would not seek reelection after representing the district since 2007. The AP called the race at 8:01.

Crank is a longtime political consultant and radio show host. He previously ran in the 5th District GOP primary in 2006 and 2008. He’s a former executive with the free-market organization Americans for Prosperity, and in the 1990s he served on the Washington staff of a previous 5th District representative, Joel Hefley.

Crank earned endorsements from Lamborn and Speaker Mike Johnson. He also benefited from almost $1.5 million in outside spending on his campaign. He clobbered Williams in campaign fundraising.

Williams, an outspoken election denier, became the chair of the Colorado Republican Party in 2023. He was endorsed in his bid for Congress by former President Donald Trump.

Williams has come under fire within his own party for several divisive moves. The state party this month put out anti-LGBTQ messages that many party members found offensive. The party under Williams leadership has jettisoned a tradition of remaining neutral in primary races and has instead endorsed favored candidates this year, including Williams himself. The party in May spent almost $20,000 to support Williams’ race against Crank, The Colorado Sun reported.

A growing contingent of party officials is calling for Williams to resign or to be voted out of his role as party chair.

Williams ran against Lamborn in the 2022 GOP primary election and lost. The seat is viewed as likely to be won by the Republican candidate in the general election.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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 X.