John “Tig” Tiegen, a survivor of the Sept. 12, 2012, attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi and leader of the Colorado militia group United American Defense Force, has announced his plans to again run for Mayor of Colorado Springs.
Tiegen ran in 2023, receiving just 4.97% of the vote, or 5,405 votes, during the election that led to a run-off between Yemi Mobolade, currently serving as Colorado Springs Mayor, and former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams.
“I know it’s nuts — two years ahead — but I’m trying to beat those funds,” said Tiegen during an Aug. 8 appearance on KVOR’s Richard Randall show. “I don’t want to have to raise millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I believe that we the people can win this election.”
Tiegen took issue with Mobolade’s handling of immigration issues, although Mobolade has been laudatory of ICE’s April nightclub raid. “Why is our mayor doing what the governor is asking again?” said Tiegen on air. “Not to help with immigration policies to get these criminals out of our city. I don’t agree — the mayor does not have to abide by that. It’s you to protect the city.”
Tiegen, a Marine veteran and former military contractor, compared municipal leadership to being a warrior.
“What is a mayor?” asked Tiegen. “He’s a leader. What is a warrior? He is a leader. That’s what we need in this nation is strong leaders, not somebody who is a scapegoat or silver-spoon-fed, who actually can stand up for their values and not teeter left or right. I mean, you’re going to get — I am who I am — I mean, people have known me, I’ve been in public for years now, at least 13 years. You know where I stand; I don’t deviate from anything. And I won’t because I think that’s where our nation gets in trouble.”
Tiegen, who represented the Trump Campaign twice in Colorado during the 2020 election, has long been a supporter of podcaster and defamation suit defendant Joe Oltmann, whose co-defendants in various lawsuits brought by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer have nearly all settled, admitting, “Mr. Oltmann has since produced no evidence beyond his sworn statement that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software or that Dr. Coomer claimed to have done so. Nor has Mr. Oltmann produced any evidence beyond his sworn statement that Dr. Coomer participated in a conversation with members of ‘Antifa.’”
Tiegen has provided an affidavit in support of Oltmann’s unsubstantiated claims of an “antifa conference call.”
During his 2023 campaign, Tiegen spoke at an event keynoted by Matthew Trewhella, a far-right pastor who has defended murdering abortion providers as “justifiable homicide.”
As recently as March of this year, Tiegen, who made news during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests for his vigilante counter-protesting, was involved in a confrontation with protesters during conservative political strategist Steve Bannon’s appearance at the Colorado GOP gala at the Phil Long Music Hall.
