Gabe Evans’ Political Director Jessica Spindle has been working to get him elected to office for years, ever since his first run for statehouse in 2022. Evans is now challenging Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, in a race that’s expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive contests. She’s been on staff as Evans’ political director for his congressional campaign since April, but she’s been a relentless sharer of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and calls for political violence for much, much longer.
She made her most egregious antisemitic post just three months ago, while on Evans’ payroll. On June 14, Spindle publicly posted the infamous “Freedom for Humanity” mural, which depicts antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of naked figures. Spindle shared the post from a conspiracy account called Anonymous, which included a single “Okay” hand sign emoji, a symbol that has been co-opted by the alt-right to indicate white power, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During the first summer of the pandemic Spindle shared another antisemitic cartoon depicting a puppeteer’s hand controlling marionette strings attached to a mask-wearing man.
The original cartoon has been altered to add a sleeve on the hand identifying it “NWO” [New World Order]. She’s also posted that COVID-19 was intentionally released by the “New World Order” as a means of controlling the global population.
Both the NWO and marionette imagery are well-established antisemitic memes.
Antisemitic QAnon Posts
Spindle, who as a Weld Re-8 school board member is an elected official in her own right, has also posted multiple times in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which the Trump Administration’s FBI deemed a domestic terror threat. In July of 2020, she shared a woman’s post that read, “K since I am on a roll with my last post I would love to know who’s down the Qanon/Pizzagate/fall cabal/WayFair rabbit hole?” [Pizzagate and Wayfair are other versions of the QAnon conspiracy.] The accompanying image is a popular conspiracy meme titled: “ME TRYING TO CONVINCE MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT THE WORLD IS RUN BY SATANIC, PEDOPHILE NUTJOBS AND WE ALL NEED TO JOIN THE GREAT AWAKENING TO SAVE HUMANITY.”
A month later, Spindle posted a news story about Facebook deleting hundreds of QAnon-promoting accounts. She added her own comment: “Yep it’s getting worse. I will not be silent.”
The QAnon conspiracy encompasses numerous aspects, but the basic conceit that a cabal of evil global elites controls the world is fundamentally antisemitic. Spindle also shared a post claiming that a tweet by Congresswoman Diana DeGette about stem cell research was proof of “Satanic Pedovores” murdering children for their and drinking their blood, a conspiracy theory based on the age-old antisemitic trope of blood libel.
Stefanie Clarke, co-founder of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, called for Evans to fire Spindle and urged her school board colleagues to launch an investigation.
“It is beyond appalling for an elected official and high-level political campaign staff member to share such blatant antisemitic imagery — and to include the caption “the most powerful pic I’ve ever seen,”’ is nothing short of outrageously inflammatory, offensive, and dangerous,” said Clarke. “The ‘Freedom for Humanity’ mural is one of the most notorious examples of modern antisemitic propaganda, perpetuating harmful stereotypes that have fueled hatred and violence against the Jewish people for generations.
“We will not stand by and allow antisemitism to be normalized in our political discourse. Congressional candidate Gabe Evans must not only condemn Jessica Spindle and her post, but also immediately terminate her from his campaign. Anything less would signal to the Jewish community that he believes this to be acceptable rhetoric. Further, we urge the Weld Re-8 School Board to launch an investigation into Board Member Spindle’s history of antisemitic posts, including propagating the blood libel and minimizing the universally recognized evil of Adolf Hitler. Someone who harbors such deep-seated venom toward any group of people has no place overseeing the education of Colorado’s children. This incident highlights the urgent need for accountability and education at every level of public service to ensure hate of any kind is never tolerated in our state or our democracy.”
Reached via text a spokesperson for the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League noted ADL’s specific statements (links throughout) on many of the images, conspiracies and themes in Spindle’s posts, but declined to comment further.
Reached for comment, Rabbi Joseph Black, of Denver’s Temple Emanuel, offered the following statement after reviewing the images.
“While it appears that these posts are not recent, it is disturbing to see Ms. Spindle disseminating vile antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.”
Posts Promoting Racism and Violence
In addition to her antisemitic Facebook posts, Spindle has shared racist memes with violent themes.
“I would love this flag! Omg,” she wrote on a July 2019 post of an advertisement for a combined American, Gadsden, and Confederate flag.
As previously noted, Spindle is also an elected official. Since 2022, she’s sat on the Weld County Re-8 school board.
None of Weld Re-8 School Board responded to an email request for comment. This article will be updated with any response received.
Over the past few months, she has deleted or further restricted access to a number of offensive posts, including the antisemitic mural, but her friends-only posts can been seen by over 3,000 people, including Evans.
Spindle has also called for political violence.
Writing about then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in April 2020, Spindle wrote, “Someone please shoot her! Our Social Security recipients are Americans that are disabled or worked their whole lives for those benefits. I am pretty sure illegals are the drain in our system. Fuck her. I ever meet her I will spit on this bitch.”
She doesn’t appear to have attempted to delete that post, nor her numerous posts promoting the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen. Her repeated support for Weld County seceding from Colorado remains as well. Commenting on her post promoting the idea of Weld County leaving Colorado and joining Wyoming, Spindle wrote, “I want to divide our state.”
The “shoot Pelosi” post wasn’t Spindle’s only invocation of violence. The day after the 2020 election, A commenter agreed with Spindle’s lamenting the results the day after the 2020 election, writing, “Just wait until they get taxed very heavily by that idiot and see how they scream bloody murder and there ain’t a God damn thing they can do.”
In consecutive comments, Spindle replied: “war. That’s all we have left civil war.”
Election Conspiracy Posts
On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before a pro-Trump mob led by militia members stormed the U.S. Capitol, Spindle posted a meme of George Washington holding an AK-47 assault rifle along with the logo of the Three Percent militia. Numerous Three Percenters have been convicted and sent to prison for participating in the armed insurrection.
Spindle has repeatedly posted the election fraud conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen, specifically that Denver-based Dominion Voting rigged the election against Donald Trump.
Following a Jan. 3, 2021 post in which she wrote that people who deny 2020 election fraud are fools and that “we will be in war if you don’t open your eye,” a commenter pointed out that numerous courts had already rejected fraud allegations.
Spindle replied, “So why isn’t such a big deal to audit the election why contest making sure it was not rigged? Why [are] there hundred [of] thousands of [more] votes than registered voter? …It’s okay when civil war hits everyone can look at themselves and ask how did this happen.”
Does Evans Agree with Spindle?
It’s certainly not a requirement that a candidate share all the views of his political director. But it’s no surprise that it appears — judging from Spindle’s social media posts — that Evans shares many of Spindle’s. Like Evans, she supports Trump, she’s against Roe v. Wade, and she wants migrants deported.
It’s not known if Evans agrees with his political director’s antisemitic and racist views. Or with her calls for violence and for Weld County to secede from Colorado. Or if he believes in the QAnon conspiracy theory, as Spindle apparently does. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
But Evans shares at least some of Spindle’s beliefs in election conspiracies. He’s refused to say that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, explaining it isn’t a “yes-no” question.
The Evans campaign declined to comment as to whether it was aware of its Political Director’s online statements. This article will be updated with any response received.
Besides being friends on Facebook and therefore having access to her personal posts, Evans has touted his professional experience vetting soldiers for security clearances. During a floor debate over a debt collection transparency bill, Evans detailed his time overseeing personal security assessments.
“When I was a personal security manager for the military, I oversaw the security clearances for about 200 soldiers,” said Evans. “One of the most important things when we’re doing these personal security assessments is actually whether or not that soldier happens to have any outstanding debt… The first thing that we need to do is examine any debt that that service member may have to make sure that they’re not susceptible to potentially being influenced by foreign powers attempting to access classified information by effectively paying off that that service members debt. So I had a lot of experience with helping a lot of my service members resolve their debt so that they could continue their career in the military, in service to the country and be able to get those necessary security clearances for additional promotion or additional job assignments.”
Evans served in the Army and the National Guard from 2009 to 2019. While debt is part of a personal security assessment, it isn’t the only part. Security clearance investigations also include reviews of an individual’s social media activity.
As the National Guard website explains, “social media can be a place where people show their true character.”
Prior to Evans hiring her as political director for his congressional campaign, Spindle volunteered for his statehouse race, staffing booths at events and promoting his content online as early as January of 2022.
At a campaign event back in June, Evans made a point of introducing Spindle to his supporters, noting her dual roles as both school board member and campaign staffer.
“So if you don’t know, Jessica’s one of our folks on the Weld-8 school board, said Evans. “She also helps out with my campaign. I see Jess all the time, sometimes I forget to do that. She’s on the school board, fighting for kids.”
CTR Editor Jason Salzman contributed to this story.
