During a March 7 appearance on the Peter Boyles Show, Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Oltmann was discussing the state’s conservative establishment power structure when he made a surprising disclosure.
“The Republicans are the ones that, in 2022, asked me to go to Bohemian Grove,” he said. “Twice — by two different people.”
While Oltmann is currently a defendant in a defamation suit and has a long history of making outlandish claims — like in 2021, during COVID pandemic, when he claimed he was attacked with anthrax — his mention of Bohemian Grove is at least possible. Oltmann, as is his style, declined to actually name a source that could corroborate his claims about Bohemian Grove, but the mysterious California retreat for the ultra-wealthy elite has been in the news recently following the Feb. 24 publication of a 2023 membership list by independent journalist Dan Boguslaw. Follow-up reporting by the San Francisco Standard verified the accuracy of Boguslaw’s list, which does include a handful of influential figures in Colorado politics.
Before there was Jeffrey Epstein, there was Bohemian Grove. Formed in the late 1800s, the annual retreat for San Francisco’s Bohemian Club has been the source of intense speculation from parapolitics and conspiracy enthusiasts since the 1980s. The event brings together some of the most wealthy, powerful, and influential people in the country — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger are among the list of former members. In 2023, ProPublica reported that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted a trip to Bohemian Grove from Dallas businessman Harlan Crow. It’s an exclusive club that almost included Oltmann, allegedly.
“I did not go,” Oltmann told Boyles. “I don’t believe in the apparatus itself. I think it’s a — you know, you don’t walk into the devil’s playground, and that, to me, is the devil’s playground.”
In 2000, before he became a household name for all things conspiracy, Alex Jones infiltrated Bohemian Grove and witnessed the burning of an effigy to the giant owl statue, which Jones characterized as a ritual sacrifice. Jones’ ideological father — JFK truther turned UFO conspiracist turned full-bore crank Bill Cooper — mentioned the Bohemian Club in his 1991 conspiracy opus “Behold a Pale Horse,” noting “[Former Reagan Secretary of State] George Schultz, of course, is a member of the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations], the Bohemian Club and the Bechtel Corporation, all of which have close ties to the Order and Knights of Malta.”
The Knights of Malta, or the Sovereign Order of Malta, is a Catholic order whose membership sometimes overlap with Bohemian Grove’s. Reagan and Bush were knights of Malta, as is former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, judicial activist and conservative donor Leonard Leo, and others.
In 1992, John DeCamp’s account of the Franklin scandal, The Franklin Cover-Up, also discussed connections to Bohemian Grove. The allegations made in the Franklin Scandal, described by a grand jury as a “carefully crafted hoax,” are a kind of proto-QAnon. In 1988 it was alleged that Lawrence King Jr., described as “the fastest rising Black star in the Republican party in all of the 80’s,” who owned the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union in Omaha, was leading a ring of pedophiles who engaged in Satanic ritual abuse, the sacrifice of infants, and trafficking children and drugs to high-ranking members of the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. Gary Caradori, an investigator hired by the Nebraska legislature, died in a plane crash on July 11, 1990, a day after reportedly informing Rep. Loran Schmit, a Republican, that he had found conclusive evidence of the allegations. Schmit doubted the official explanation for the crash of Caradori’s plane, writing in 1991 to NTSB inspector Bill Bruce, “There have been entirely too many violent deaths associated with this investigation for me accept the conclusion that Caradori’s aircraft simply came apart in the sky.”
Though King was never charged for the Satanic child abuse allegations, he was indicted on 40 counts that included conspiracy, fraud, and embezzlement in connection with the theft of $39.4 million from his credit union. In 1989 the Washington Times reported on a homosexual prostitution ring whose clients included “key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations.” Craig Spence, a lobbyist known for his lavish parties, was named as a client. He told the Times, “All this stuff you’ve uncovered, to be honest with you, is insignificant compared to other things I’ve done. But I’m not going to tell you those things, and somehow the world will carry on,” months before his death by suicide.
Among the claims to come out of the Franklin Scandal, alleged victim Paul Bonacci testified that he witnessed ritualistic murders at Bohemian Grove. Bonacci would go on to make unverified claims about the unsolved 1982 disappearance of Johnny Gosch.
Other journalistic accounts of sneaking into the Grove describe the atmosphere as more fraternal (of the low-brow collegiate variety) than diabolical, though they all affirm the heavy-hitter membership.
Suffice to say, Bohemian Grove has a prominent place in American conspiracy literature. Oltmann’s podcast has included a number of notable conspiracy figures in recent years — aside from his usual stable of election deniers and white supremacists — like alleged MK Ultra victim Cathy O’Brien and occult researcher William Ramsey, so even if he wasn’t actually invited to Bohemian Grove, the lore would certainly be on his radar.
[It certainly was familiar to Boyles, who was clearly dazzled by Oltmann’s claim, so much so that after briefly giving listeners a line of context, then asked Oltmann to score him an invite. See their full exchange at the end of this article.]
Colorado Connections
Pete Coors
The most prominent Colorado name in the 2023 Bohemian Grove membership list is Pete Coors, one of the heirs of the Coors brewing fortune. The Coors family has a long history of involvement in politics, from their opposition to organized labor at their Golden brewery to Pete’s father, Joe Coors, co-founding the Heritage Foundation with Edwin John Feulner Jr., who is also a Grove member. In the 80s, the elder Coors also helped the Contras, right-wing Nicaraguan death squads, buy a plane during the height of the Iran-Contra scandal.
In 2004, Pete ran for Senate, losing to Democrat Ken Salazar. Coors remains a significant donor to political causes. In 2016, Coors donated $5,000 to Leadership Matters for America, a super PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and $5,000 to Right to Rise, which supported Jeb Bush. Coors’ Pema Foundation gave Rocky Mountain Voice, Heidi Ganahl’s conservative news outlet, $50,000 in 2023.
Kent Thiry
Businessman Kent Thiry is also on the list of Bohemian Grove members. Thiry supported the failed effort to bring ranked choice voting to Colorado. Thiry also backed Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s campaign. Johnston himself was part of Yale’s secret society, Skull and Bones, whose membership often overlaps with the Bohemian Club’s. Joining Thiry in backing Johnston was Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has contributed $779,804 as of March to an independent expenditure committee supporting Johnston, called Advancing Denver. In 2019, Hoffman was connected to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein through their shared fundraising for the MIT Media Lab. According to Axios, Hoffman invited Epstein to a dinner in 2015 that included Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Hoffman told Axios the interactions were limited and he apologized for the connection.
Terry Considine
Denver real estate mogul Terry Considine is also a member of Bohemian Grove. In the 80s, Considine ran for Senate with Fox News’ Roger Ailes as his campaign adviser, but ran into controversy after using a slur to describe Latin American immigrants. Recently, Considine has joined former Governor Bill Owens in backing Advance Colorado, the think tank helmed by Michael Fields driving conservative ballot initiatives. Considine also served as the former chairman of the Bradley Foundation, which funds a host of conservative causes, including the Centennial Institute and the State Policy Network, among many others.
It’s not all Republicans. Musician and host of eTown, Nick Forster (whose bio, for the conspiracy heads out there, notes “his father worked briefly with the U.S. Foreign Service”) is on the list, as is Alan Dachs, who has donated to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and other Democratic causes.
While there is no concrete way to verify who invited Oltmann, it certainly isn’t outside the realm of possibility, which is more than you can say for a lot of his claims.
Watch the full exchange between Boyles and Oltmann here:
Peter Boyles If there is such a thing — and I think there is — Deep State or as an establishment, is it here?
Joe Oltmann Oh, I would say that this state is fully controlled. You can actually see it. You can see it, and here’s our problem, Peter, is that we have a Republican apparatus that is just as bad as a Democrat apparatus, and they talk, right? They talk. The power players in this state are, you know, the Anschutz of the world, right? Those are the people in Colorado that Dick Wadhams, I know you’re friends with him. I wish that Dick would sit down and relinquish the ‘do as we’ve done for the last 30 or 40 years,’ because it would allow for good people to get into office, reset things. And then if you wanna go back to stealing primaries and making sure your guy gets into office and use media, great. But let’s get back to a place where we can reset the apparatus.
Boyles: In fairness Dick is just a- he’s a spokesperson for nobody but himself.
Oltmann: I agree.
Boyles: He doesn’t, he’s just a man who I like and he speaks history, he doesn’t speak- he is not speaking for someone.
Oltmann: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s true or not true. I don’t know enough about him. But I do know that his ideas are shared by people inside that apparatus who get to pick winners and losers. And the people always lose in the state of Colorado because the apparatus is so rotted.
Boyles: The Republicans always lose.
Oltmann: Well, only for the last 20 years.
Boyles: Yeah. Because-
Oltmann: What happened 20 years ago? We’re not allowed to talk about it.
Boyles: No, I know what happened. I was here, I was part of it. I watched it.
Oltmann: I mean, I got in an argument with Bill Owens in 2022. Look, the Republicans are the ones that in 2022 asked me to go to Bohemian Grove, right?
Boyles: Oh, really?
Oltmann: Yeah, and it wasn’t a Democrat.
Boyles: For the folks who don’t know, Bohemian- you got asked to go?
Oltmann: Twice. By two different people.
Boyles: And you didn’t go?
Oltmann: I did not go.
Boyles: Why?
Oltmann: Because I don’t believe in the apparatus itself. I think it’s a, it’s, you know, you don’t, you, you don’t walk into the devil’s playground. And that to me is a devil’s playground.
Boyles: Well, what’s part of the conspiracy is Bohemian Grove, it fills in with the Bilderbergers. You got invited to go?
Oltmann: Twice I was asked.
Boyles: Get me invited!
Oltmann: I don’t know…
Boyles: When- what camp are you going to stay in?
Oltmann: So my point is I’m a man with no island. I’m man for the people’s island and I can recognize what’s happening in our state and you can see the institutional rise.
Boyles: Come back who invited you to? You can’t say.
Oltmann: But I got on my podcast- literally I went to lunch with this man. And I came back and I didn’t even know what Bohemian Grove was. But I mean, I didn’t even know right and so I got onto the podcast and I was like I just got asked to go to Bohemian Grove And I was I don’t even what it is. Hey look it up for me. Tell me what it is.
Boyles: Oh, please Oh, yeah, Kissinger- Kissinger went.
Oltmann: Yeah, so Max goes ‘you got wait what?’ I was yeah And he goes, ‘Joe that’s the thing that Alex Jones infiltrated.’
Boyles: They talk about it all the time.
