Colorado Republican Chair Dave Williams today announced he’s selected Tom Bjorklund as the party’s new Treasurer. Bjorklund, a longtime political operative from Grand Junction, is an election fraud conspiracist who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Early last week, Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor for the trio of Anschutz-owned Colorado media properties (the Gazette in Colorado Springs, Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics), sent a one-line email to his staff.
Seven hundred eighty-seven and a half million dollars. We can now put a price tag on promoting election fraud conspiracies, as least as measured by the lawyers advising Fox News. That eye-popping sum has legal observers wondering how defendants in Dominion Voting Systems’ several other defamation lawsuits will weigh this decision in their own legal battles.
When Colorado Republicans elected two first-time party leaders last month, Chairman Dave Williams made the biggest headlines with his brazen election denialism, but he isn’t the most extreme new party officer. That title goes to GOP Secretary Anna Ferguson of Adams County, who shares Williams’ election denialism, but also supports the QAnon conspiracy theory that America’s top Democrats are secret pedophiles.
The Douglas County Republican Party shared a racist cartoon on its Facebook page last week. The April 5 post features a cartoon of former President Donald Trump’s indictment, in which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is Black, is depicted shouting angrily while presenting a banana to the court, which is meant to be his case against Trump.
UPDATE: Following publication, LPR Board Chair Bob Schaffer replied to CTR’s email. His response has been added.
Colorado Springs Mayoral candidate John “Tig” Tiegen is also known for founding a right-wing militia called United American Defense Force (UADF). Last week, at an event with extremist Pastor Matthew Trewhella, Tiegen lamented that his group used to have thousands of members, but that many of them quit after January 6th, because they were “scared of the government.”
This evening in Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs mayoral candidate and militia leader John “Tig” Tiegen will speak at an event keynoted by Matthew Trewhella, a far-right pastor who has defended murdering abortion providers as “justifiable homicide.”
As the newly elected Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, Dave Williams is making the obligatory rounds of the state’s numerous conservative talk radio shows. For the past two weeks, he’s been introducing himself to the party faithful, sharing his vision for revamping the state GOP, and taking some tough questions from the likes of George Brauchler, Deborah Flora, Dan Caplis, Peter Boyles and other mic-wielding Republicans from both wings of his party.
UPDATE: In another radio interview, Williams clarified the role he envisions for Peters: bringing in dollars from her “national network of well funded friends.” See below for details.
