by Ashe in America | Dec 13, 2024 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
On October 18, 2022, The New York Times shocked themselves when their Siena College poll revealed that 68% of likely US voters answered the same open-ended question the same way:
What do you see as the biggest threat to democracy?
Government Corruption — That the government is not working on behalf of the people.
That was one month before the 2022 midterm elections. I doubt that metric has gone down.
Corruption is a national concern, and Americans are sobering up to the realities of unaccountable governance via public private partnerships. Here in Colorado, this shift in awareness is pronounced.
On October 29, 2024, during early voting, the Colorado GOP revealed the Colorado Department of State (CDoS) published the BIOS passwords for hundreds of pieces of election equipment on their public website.
According to a redacted affidavit, later revealed from Colonel Shawn Smith (USAF, Ret.), from August 8 through October 24, the BIOS passwords were exposed for 600+ individual pieces of election equipment in 63 counties. On October 24, the spreadsheet was removed from the website and replaced with an updated version without the passwords.
The October 24 date is important, because it proves that CDoS knew about the breach but failed to alert the county clerks. The clerks held the potentially exposed devices, and this breach occurred during the voting period.
In November, the Libertarian Party of Colorado unsuccessfully sued CDoS and, during that hearing, it was revealed that the passwords had been up since June 21 — before the 2024 primary — and that there was true security exposure for devices in 34 counties.
But the clerks found out like the rest of us: From the Colorado GOP press release on October 29.
This was a coverup, and following the GOP press release, the crisis communications began immediately. Deputy Secretary Chris Beall (public) and Colorado County Clerks Association Executive Director Matt Crane (private) handled the clerks, while Secretary Jena Griswold (public) shared her story with her pal Kyle Clark (private).
There was never any real threat. They were all acting out of an abundance of caution. There is no security breach.
Again, these contemporaneous assertions were later proved untrue in court and, regardless, at the time Beall, Crane, Griswold, and Clark made these assertions, CDoS could not possibly have known if there was exploitation for a very simple reason: They didn’t tell the Clerks, and the Clerks had the devices.
It was just spin. Narrative. A Story.
They said it anyway. On November 1, just three days after news of the breach hit the public, Griswold claimed victory:
“All of the passwords in affected counties have been changed…every eligible voter should know their ballot will be counted as cast.”
The coverup appears to have been successful for now; but, earlier this month, additional news about Colorado Executive Branch corruption broke.
On December 2, The Gateway Pundit published a bombshell article with newly discovered emails that revealed Mesa County Treasurer Sheila Reiner working with Dominion Voting Systems in 2021. Reiner had a Dominion email address and was coordinating with the election vendor in 2021, without the knowledge or involvement of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.
Open Records don’t cover Dominion email addresses. Hiding communications from open records exposure is an intentional choice.
Reiner was appointed, by CDoS, to run the Mesa County Clerk’s Office after Griswold removed Peters — for what they claimed was a BIOS password leak.
You can’t make this up.
In August 2021, I reported on Reiner inexplicably renewing her elections credentials on August 3 — a week and a half before the Peters story broke — and I speculated about premeditation with CDoS. The sequence of events was a heck of a coincidence if Reiner didn’t have a heads up from Griswold.
Now we know that Reiner was very involved in elections, with a critical election vendor and CDoS, in shadows behind Peters’ back.
How did none of this come up in the reporting? How did it not come up in the local/state/federal investigations into the Peters “breach?” How did it not come up during Peters’ trial?
The simplest answer: Corruption.
You cannot restore public trust without accountability. CDoS is hoping this story fades away; the people must ensure this is just the beginning of this exposure.
The corrupt will never hold themselves accountable.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | Nov 15, 2024 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
The election is behind us, and Colorado Republicans performed better in the Centennial State than they did during the prior two iterations of Colorado GOP leadership. The Congressional delegation is now balanced with four Democrats and four Republicans, and Republicans managed to chip away at the super majority in the Colorado House and prevent a super majority in the Colorado Senate.
In 2023, Republican party voting members chose to break the establishment’s stranglehold on their party, choosing former State Representative Dave Williams to lead the party in a new America First direction. The idea was simple: We’re finally going to fight back against Democrats and elect America First Republicans.
Prior to the election of Williams, party leadership under Brown, and under former Congressman Ken Buck (CO-04) before her, were happy being the minority party in the state. They scored no notable wins. They made no meaningful change. They whined and failed and blamed Democrats for their failures. Then they asked for money.
In 2023, Republican voters demanded the party fight back, fight the corruption head on, and openly oppose the sinister subversion of our Colorado institutions.
The opposition began immediately, as the Kristi Burton Browns and Eli Bremers of the world processed their thunderous rejection by the most engaged members of their party.
In the run up to their ouster, in December 2022, Kristi Burton Brown’s leadership team allegedly paid themselves the party’s remaining budget as bonuses, despite a complete and total failure to achieve the much anticipated “red wave.” It’s never been established what accomplishments those bonuses awarded, but it doesn’t matter. They left the party coffers empty, and they never turned over the books.
While starving the party of resources, these Republicans then, in the middle of an election year, attempted a coup on the elected Chairman of the GOP. They dragged the party to court, held a meeting with their allies, agreed on a novel interpretation of the bylaws that affirmed their subversive plot, and claimed that “the party” voted to oust the Chair.
Then Eli Bremer ran around calling himself Chairman for a while.
Imagine how Republicans might have performed in the 2024 election if former GOP leadership was working for, rather than against, the will of Republican voters. Imagine if those resources — legal fees and time spent in court and all that psychological and emotional energy — had been spent on winning races?
Despite this targeted opposition from the Republican establishment, Republican candidates performed better than they have in a long time. It likely would have been even better if not for the ongoing GOP civil war.
Prior to the 2024 election cycle, GOP leadership never made any effort to engage the broader electorate, recognizing the changing demographics in our state. Chairman Dave Williams, however, collaborated with Libertarian Party Chairman Hannah Goodman, and they developed the Liberty Pledge. As a result of the Liberty Pledge, the Libertarian candidate in Congressional District 8 withdrew from the race and Gabe Evans is now a Republican Congressman.
The establishment camp is quick to dismiss the Colorado Republican Party of having any impact in CD8 — Evans reportedly refused party resources and negotiated his Liberty Pledge outside the party — but prior to Williams, the idea of Republicans collaborating with Libertarians would get you banished from polite party society. Williams broke the ground.
Establishment Republicans’ first instinct after Evans’ victory was to attack the coalition and settle personal scores. They barely acknowledged the role of Libertarians in the extraordinarily tight CD8 race; their primary focus — after a massive Republican win — was to attack their fellow Republicans and manipulate their way back into power.
In Colorado, America First is a coalition and competing for credit and assigning blame are death blows to a coalition. It’s not surprising, then, that this is the path of the power hungry. Soon these instigators will renew their calls for Williams to resign despite the chair election being a few months away. Pursuing power and settling personal scores is really all they know.
America First has momentum in Colorado, and powerful people are desperate to stop it. Division is effective at destabilizing, and there’s nothing more divisive than a civil war.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | Oct 18, 2024 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Judge Matthew Barrett
What happens to those who challenge corruption in Colorado government? In the case of Tina Peters, it’s nine years in prison and more than ten thousand dollars in fines. Peters was sentenced on October 3, in a dystopian circus that quickly went nationally viral.
The government — local, state, and federal — worked together to make an example of Peters, the former duly elected Clerk and Recorder of Mesa County, cobbling together alleged violations of COVID-19 emergency rules and pre-2022 office norms to send a message that government authority is tiered and absolute in the Centennial State.
Peters is currently in custody in Mesa County as she appeals the case. She has retained the Wynne Law Group for her appeal. In response to request for comment, Michael Wynne stated, “There are substantial grounds for appeal. The most glaring is the disproportionality of the sentence imposed. And that is before we even get to the merits and the defenses not presented to the jury.” They are expected to make filings related to the appeal in the near future.
During the trial, Peters was prevented by Judge Matthew Barrett from speaking about her intent; the explosive findings from the Mesa County images analysis were also prohibited from being presented for the jury’s consideration. This is because, in pretrial motions, the judge determined that why Peters did what she did was irrelevant to the jury’s consideration about the innocence or guilt of what she did.
That could, and maybe should, have been the end of the story on “election denialism,” and it certainly was as it pertains to the jury’s consideration of evidence and testimony and to their verdict. But in a stunning move at sentencing, Judge Barrett placed himself in judgement over the why — despite prohibiting a fair examination of the same.
“…you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
This judge — like so many others across the nation — refused to allow a hearing of the evidence about whether Peters’ curiosity, which later turned into concern, was founded. That decision may be legally sound as pertains to Peters’ trial, but Barrett reveals with this statement that he’s already determined the truth of the matter of evidence he refused to consider.
And he relied upon that out-of-court determination in her sentencing. That’s astounding. It gets worse.
“No one in this country has absolute power. Your position as a clerk and recorder, a constitutional position, does not provide you with a means by which to do your own investigation, to not listen to the judiciary, to not listen to the executives higher than you, to not listen to the legislature who sets the law as it may be. This is nonsense. Our system of government can’t function when people in government think that somehow, some way, the power they’ve been given is absolute in all respects.”
It’s hard to make the case that Peters believed she had absolute power. Peters’ only crime is being deceptive with the Secretary of State’s office. At the time, Peters — an official elected to a Constitutional position — believed that the Secretary of State’s office was about to engage in a crime. Her actions were in that context… a detail that was not allowed to be heard by the jury.
Barrett’s stated position appears to declare that Peters had no right, and certainly no recourse, to question the Secretary of State’s office. His carefully crafted statements declare, before Colorado and the nation, that government consensus is not just above the law, but above scrutiny and unable to be questioned.
In other words, public trust is officially mandated. Trust the government or face a decade in prison.
If the government cannot be questioned, corruption will thrive. Opacity, obstruction, and political persecutions are, historically, signals of corruption. All of these elements are glaringly present in modern American democracy, certainly in Colorado, and not just when it comes to questioning the election apparatus.
Consider migrant response, the tax crisis, out of control homelessness, and rising crime.
The people responsible for our current reality — the governing authorities, their public/private partnerships, the NGO infrastructure, and their media lapdogs — are working overtime to convince you that Tina Peters, and anyone else questioning their authority, are the gravest threat to “our democracy.”
That should be enough to make you question what they mean by “our democracy.”
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/ashein america.
by Ashe in America | Sep 26, 2024 | Feature Story Bottom Left
ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Dave Williams is the Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, but Eli Bremer claimed the title after a dubious meeting on Saturday, August 24.
Billed as an official gathering of the party’s State Central Committee, a fraction of delegates — and no one from current party leadership — showed up to participate in the ousting of Chairman Dave Williams, Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman, and Secretary Anna Ferguson.
The meeting was contested before it began.
Flip Flopping Court Findings
At the end of July, Arapahoe County District Court Judge Thomas Willard Henderson IV issued a temporary restraining order on the meeting, stating, “the leadership of the Colorado Republican Party would be called into question, leaving the party in disarray roughly 100 days before election day on Nov. 5, 2024.”
Henderson reversed course on August 6, rescinding his TRO. The reversal stated that the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and should never have issued the TRO to begin with.
On August 24, the meeting proceeded. It was a who’s who of establishment figures who’ve been repeatedly rejected by Republican voters. Former Chair Kristi Burton Brown reportedly played a facilitation role, along with Senior Advisor to Runbeck Election Services and serial “public servant,” Wayne Williams.
Williams is also the former Colorado Republican Secretary of State that unsuccessfully attempted to mandate Dominion Voting Systems in 2016. “When they do buy new equipment, at least the software must be from Dominion,” said Williams, in a 2016 interview reported by Complete Colorado at the time. He lost that battle in court.
“What’s important to clarify, the court DID NOT rule on the legality of the dispute,” the State Executive Committee stated in a letter to the party.
The dispute is that the official State Central Committee meeting was already scheduled for August 31, in accordance with the GOP bylaws. The bylaws also explicitly and repeatedly give authority to the “CRC Chairman,” which is Dave Williams.
The statement continued, “The Republican National Committee’s own parliamentarian, Al Gage, issued an opinion along with our own parliamentarian, Gregory Carlson, outlining why August 31st is the only legitimate meeting.” The letter linked to the opinions of both Parliamentarians.
When reached for comment after the August 24 meeting, Chairman Williams expanded on the statement, “The court did not give an opinion on who has jurisdiction because the State Central Committee has the jurisdiction.”
A Clear Coup
Republican bylaws state that 30% of delegates need to be present for a quorum and 60% of the entire SCC must be present to oust leadership. During the meeting, those present — roughly, 77 in person delegates and 104 proxies — voted to interpret the 60% rule as 60% of those present, not of the total SCC, so they could continue their illegitimate vote. There are 414 total delegates, so around 19% were actually participating in person.
The result of the vote to oust the three officers was 166.66-12. Once “removed,” those present voted on replacements, and Eli Bremer was “elected” Chairman.
What came next is reminiscent of Joe Biden’s actions in the wake of November 3, 2020. It also recalls Kamala Harris’ conduct since the Sunday afternoon ousting of Joe Biden.
Bremer immediately updated his social media presence, referring to himself as “Chair of the Colorado Republican Party,” and engaged in over-communication about his progress. His feed on X, formerly Twitter, is a masterclass in pretend authority.
Bremer called candidates and NGOs and associations, repeatedly citing the authority of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) – “a political committee devoted to increasing the number of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives” – as though this political committee is somehow an authority over the Republican National Committee (RNC).
It’s not. The NRCC has no official authority in party affairs, at the local, state, or national levels.
One of my favorite moments from Bremer’s post-coup hysteria is his spin on the GOP Headquarters.
“The historical COGOP HQ has been non-functional for a while. Working to bring it back. In the mean time, if candidates need support for collateral storage and distribution, we have a new temp HQ set up. Working to bring Trump collateral into CO ASAP. @GOP @NRCC,” Bremer posted on X on August 28.
The COGOP HQ is currently occupied by actual COGOP leadership. Bremer’s “new temp HQ” should remind everyone of Joe Biden’s “Office of the President Elect” branding that was ubiquitous in the aftermath of the stolen election.
Some readers might be surprised to learn that a Republican, and a former Olympian, is exhibiting all the classic earmarks of the so-called ruler of the United States, but Bremer revealed himself as an establishment hack in the wake of losing his 2022 Senate run.
In June 2022, Bremer published, “Is It Time Republicans Outsource The Caucus System?” in Campfire Colorado. The article is no longer available – notable and also reminiscent of Democrat tactics – though Bremer’s Facebook Post announcing the piece is still on his page.
You read that right: from his prior positions, Bremer appears to be aligned with Kent Thiry’s radical transformation of ballot access in Colorado elections — Initiative 310 (vote NO). That’s in addition to his rapid and radical moves as the ruling junta of the fake Republican party.
The Actual Official Proceeding
On August 31, the State Central Committee officially gathered with 204 members present in person and by proxy, establishing a quorum to conduct business.
The body moved quickly to pass bylaw amendments, including upholding the State Executive Committee Decision that the August 24 meeting and its outcome were invalid. The decision was amended to add a concurring statement from the State Central Committee.
Party leadership then voluntarily called for a removal vote as a show of good faith to party delegates that may be concerned about the dueling proceedings. From the COGOP official statement:
“Even though the State Executive Committee Decision was upheld, your true State Party Officers voluntarily submitted ourselves to a removal vote.
The Removal Results were as follows:
No (Retain): 191.5
Yes (Remove): 10
The majority has spoken, and your true State Party Leadership team will jealously defend these results against a vocal minority in and out of court.”
Notably, the official August 31 proceeding had a greater number of delegates present, credentialed and voting, and Chairman Williams received a greater share of the total party vote than Mr. Bremer during the prior vote.
As the RNC parliamentarian already issued a statement on which meeting was the official proceeding, Williams, Ferguson, and Scheppelman’s victory appears conclusive.
“There was never any real support to remove any of the officers and today proved it,” Chairman Williams said when reached for comment after the official meeting.
In light of the totality of the circumstances and evidence, what we have here is a failed coup by the former ruling coalition of Colorado Republicans — the same coalition that was rejected by Republican voters in every official party proceeding since 2022.
Voters’ rejection of this coalition is consistent because it is overwhelmingly clear that their goal is raising money, whining about Colorado Democrats, and failing to accomplish ANY Republican platform objectives — including the primary objective of electing Colorado Republicans.
Readers will recall the December 2022 financial scandal where this same ruling coalition paid themselves bonuses out of the party coffers, despite a complete and total failure to achieve the much anticipated “red wave.” Bonuses are generally an award for exemplary performance, and it’s never been established what accomplishment those bonuses awarded.
Perhaps their actual objective was defeating the red wave and draining party resources prior to their ousting. I’m speculating, of course, but their ongoing conduct appears to support my speculation.
Bremer and company cherish their role as the minority party in our state — the pomp and party planning, the promises, and always out of reach progress — and this failed coup was an attempt to get back to that “important,” subversive work.
Chairman Williams blasted the failed coup leaders, asserting that all his opponents have done is “sow chaos and division with less than 65 days left in this election.”
He’s not wrong. Because of Republican infighting, voters are confused and disillusioned with the party, while enemies of the people continue to radically reshape Colorado civic life. (Side note: Again, please vote NO on ballot initiative 310 if you ever want to have a voice in your own self governance again.)
“We hope they stop harming the State Party and, instead, join with everyone else in electing President Trump this November,” Williams told me.
Me too, Mr. Chairman, but don’t count on it. These uniparty coup leaders have a job to do, and that job isn’t electing Republicans.
Eli Bremer did not respond to Chronicle requests for comment. Notably, he’s still calling himself “Chairman” in his social bios.
This saga is likely heading to court.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
by Ashe in America | Aug 23, 2024 | Feature Story Bottom Left
The much-anticipated trial of Tina Peters took place in Mesa County earlier this month. As of press time, the trial is underway. The prosecution has brought various Mesa County employees to testify about the events of May 2021, when the “Trusted Build” took place in the county, as well as about events of August 2021, when the Secretary of State descended upon then Clerk Tina Peters’ office.
While the reader will likely know the outcome of the jury trial prior to reading this, it’s still valuable to explore the context of the “The People’s” charges in this case. Like many other Colorado cases, it is a novel legal endeavor and deserves critical examination.
Tina Peters is charged with attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State, for the actions she took in May 2021 to preserve election records and system log files of Mesa’s 2020 election.
Peters maintains that her actions were part of her official duties, while the state and local authorities claim she broke the law.
Which laws she allegedly broke is a controversial matter.
By the third day of witness examination in the trial, it became clear that the criminal charges against Peters were dubious. Witness after witness admitted that, at best, Peters violated Covid-19 policies and unwritten office standards and practices.
Both the prosecution and the defense established that Peters believed the Trusted Build would wipe election records, and that she took steps to preserve them in accordance with her sworn duties as an elected official.
Further, both the prosecution and the defense established that Peters did not trust the messaging coming out from the Secretary of State about the Trusted Build. As the duly elected official with elections oversight in Mesa County, Peters had a statutory duty to preserve election records for 22 months, federally, and 24 months in Colorado.
This intent is important, particularly because the criminality of the charges against Peters are novel.
The case against Peters comes down to two major factors: (1) Who had statutory authority over elections in Mesa County in May 2021, and (2) Did Tina Peters “steal” the identity of Gerald Wood?
This is where it gets interesting. During the 2022 legislative session, at the behest of Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the General Assembly passed the “Colorado Election Security Act,” or Senate Bill 22-153.
At the time, conservative Representative Ron Hanks said of the legislation, “Every one of my colleagues needs to admit that this piece of legislation effectively nullifies local oversight of elections. County Officials are elected, just like the Secretary of State, but this law subjugates them to her. It removes local governance and control in one of the most important areas of American government — our elections.”
The bill passed, and Secretary Griswold centralized power.
In the Trial of Tina Peters, “The People” attempted to prosecute Peters under this Act, even attempting to mention the law in front of the jury before the judge sustained objections from the Defense.
They passed a law in response to Peters’ actions, and then they tried to prosecute her under the new law. Thus, Tina Peters actions, at the time they happened, were lawful. This fact alone should dismiss all but the “identity theft” charge against Peters.
On the identify theft, Wood, testifying in exchange for immunity, claimed to be an innocent party in the plan to image election machines. But in a dramatic moment during his cross examination, Wood was confronted with messages from Signal, an encrypted messaging app, showing that he was quite cozy with Peters and her team, and ostensibly that he was aware of their plans.
If Wood was aware of the plan, then his identity wasn’t stolen. These messages certainly cast reasonable doubt on Peters’ identity theft charge.
Once again, in Colorado courts, we are left with novel legal efforts to punish the political opposition of the State’s triple political majority —– for otherwise lawful activity.
At the time I write this, the trial is underway. Regardless of how the jury comes down, the evidence is weak, and the expansive actions of state and local officials to pursue such a weak case is concerning.
If it weren’t for the political angles of this case, the matter would likely have resulted in a conversation or, at the very worst, civil penalties. Court is not the place for political disputes, and government officials should know that better than most.
May justice prevail.
Ashe in America is a writer and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
