February 13, 2024 01:02 PM UTC

Will No One Intervene In Dave Williams' Pillaging of the Colorado GOP?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports, the co-opting of the machinery of the Colorado Republican Party by chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams to service Williams’ personal aspirations is once again stirring controversy after Williams broadsided his CD-5 GOP primary opponent Jeff Crank under the party letterhead:

On Monday, the party sent out an email accusing Jeff Crank, one of his opponents for the 5th Congressional District, of being behind a claim that Williams had asked the El Paso County Clerk’s Office about using Dominion Voting System machines to count ballots at its state assembly in April, according to a story in The Gazette, which is based in Colorado Springs.

Even though he admitted to asking for a bid to use those machines, according to the story, he’s now calling it all a lie.

“We want to unequivocally make clear that our state assembly will never use Dominion, and, instead will utilize safe and secure processes to include hand counts,” the email says. “Again, these false claims are baseless and maliciously propagated by Jeff Crank supporters, and the Gazette, who are desperately trying to cover up the fact that their preferred congressional candidate works for Americans for Prosperity, and defends AFP’s decision to oppose President Donald J. Trump and endorse Nikki Haley.”

Practically from the moment Williams took over the job of Republican Party chairman last spring, Williams has repeatedly attacked fellow Republicans under the aegis of the state party, most notably Williams’ 2022 CD-5 primary opponent the now retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn. What’s different now is that Williams is once again a formal candidate for the same seat, and this message from the state party is plainly a campaign message from Williams and attacking not just Jeff Crank, but the Phil Anschutz-owned Colorado Springs Gazette who recently endorsed Crank, the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity, and Nikki Haley who still isn’t getting her $40,000 back. Last week, dozens of Republican past and present elections officials slammed Williams for using the party brand to express support for indicted ex-Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, whose trial on felony and other misconduct charges has been delayed one final time until the summer. Attacking Crank by name in particular is a problem because:

The party’s bylaws, which were last updated in September six months after Williams was elected party chairman, expressly says it can’t back one Republican over another in a primary.

“No candidate for any designation or nomination for partisan public office shall be endorsed, supported, or opposed by the (Central Republican Committee), acting as an entity, or by its state officers or committees, before the Primary Election, unless such candidate is unopposed in the Primary Election, or the candidate has gained access to the primary election ballot but has not participated in the applicable authorized Republican Assembly/Convention.”

The state party’s vote last month to formally endorse Donald Trump and urge the other candidates to get out of the race, although clearly in violation of the party’s rules, is quickly becoming a moot issue as Trump prepares to defeat Haley in her home state of South Carolina marking the effective end of the presidential primary. Although Williams is conducting himself with the same sense of inevitability, he most certainly is not in control of the CD-5 primary to the same extent Trump has dominated the presidential race. Williams is trying to sneak his own misuse of the party’s resources in under the much higher visibility endorsement of Trump.

How can any Republican consider what Williams is doing to be ethical? With the central committee apparently stacked with members prepared to rubber-stamp anything Williams puts in front of them, it doesn’t seem like there’s any formal accountability in place to oppose him. The last time the Colorado GOP faced anything like this level of dissatisfaction with their leadership was when former chairman Steve House was confronted by “concerned colleagues” led by former Secretary of State Cynthia Coffman with a salacious rumor that ultimately failed to dislodge House from his position. But it should be noted that the official misdeeds House was accused of were small potatoes compared to Dave Williams’ brazen appropriation of party resources for his own benefit.

The question now is whether Williams’ recklessness, greatly exceeding anything House was accused of, will be appeased or challenged by whatever means necessary. If Williams is allowed to get away with turning the state party into an extension of his congressional campaign, the precedent that creates is a mortal threat to the party’s integrity.

Yes, the same is true of Trump. But Dave Williams, as aspiring to Trump’s boundless perfidy as he may be, is no Donald Trump.