April 01, 2026 04:45 PM UTC

GOP Statehouse Leader Was a Member of Colorado Militia

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• by: Erik Maulbetsch

(Squeaky clean Jarvis Caldwell has a dark side — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Originally posted at the Colorado Times Recorder

Colorado House Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell’s vote on a gun bill has angered some of his more conservative constituents. Among them is a former elected official who sees him as straying from the principles he had when he was a member of the United American Defense Force, a COVID-era militia founded by former Marine and CIA security contractor John “Tig” Tiegen, as a militia division of Joe Oltmann’s conservative advocacy group, FEC United.

Republican activist Ivy Liu, who formerly served on the Falcon School District 49 board, called out Caldwell for his vote in support of a bipartisan bill that would allow the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to set its own hours of operation for background checks.

Sharing a Facebook post from the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners attacking Caldwell and three other Republicans for their votes, Liu added,

“Shame on you, Jarvis Caldwell!! You were a part of our UADF, a group of patriots who protected citizens from BLM and Antifa radicals. Were you just pretending and infiltrating?”

Bradfield is our perpetual traitor with a pathetic liberty score of 60. Time to retire for the good of our people along with Carlos Barron and Anthony Hartsook.

Definition of RINO: a wolf in sheep’s clothing who earned that label through their own actions and betrayals—not because conservatives enjoy name-calling, but because their record demands it.”

Caldwell responded in the comments,

“Funny you shared their lies but not my response to their lies,” wrote Caldwell. “I’d take political advice from a rock before taking it from you. You’re the reason we have a Democrat on the D49 school board.”

Caldwell also corrected an inaccuracy, noting that the actual up/down vote on the bill hadn’t taken place yet. He did not, however, take issue with Liu’s statement about his UADF membership.

Reached by phone, Liu confirmed her frustration with Caldwell’s votes and acknowledged that she didn’t expect it from him, given his past.

“Yeah, I got really mad at him,” said Liu. “I guess I held him to a higher standard: UADF. You know what it means to defend against these radical groups. And here you are, chipping away at something that is important to us.”

Liu says she was also a founding member of UADF who used her skills from her service as a naval officer to conduct interviews of those wanting to join. She recalls Caldwell as “sharp” with leadership potential, but young and lacking the years of experience of other veterans who wanted to join. She recommended him for membership, and Tiegen accepted him into UADF.

“I was a founding member. I worked with “Tig” Teigen to develop the leadership,” said Liu. “I interviewed the leadership, so I’m very familiar with who was doing what at the beginning. Caldwell definitely was at the events that we went out to when, let’s say Antifa and BLM threatened to come into the neighborhoods and they actually did show up at one of the neighborhoods. And we were there and yeah, he definitely was a part of it.”

During its peak, FEC United, including UADF, was an organization with very conservative principles, both in terms of policy positions and candidate support. The most recent Colorado Liberty Scorecard, which is popular among conservative activists for its ranking of state legislators, awards Caldwell a 71, just under his lifetime score of 72 for this session so far, putting him in the bottom (or more moderate) half of Republicans at the statehouse.

Caldwell did not respond to multiple voice and email requests for comment as to his role in UADF, which events he attended, and whether he supports Joe Oltmann’s campaign for state GOP Chairman. This article will be updated with any response received.

Tiegen explained UADF to an audience of GOP candidates and supporters at an October 2020 event at Bandimere Speedway, billed as the FEC United Final Countdown Members Meeting, which featured video messages from both Eric Trump and then-Colorado GOP Vice Chair Kristi Burton Brown, who would go on to lead FEC United as its president.

According to Tiegen, UADF distinguished itself from other groups that “teach urban warfare” in part by charging dues to join.

“There are other organizations that aren’t going to charge you a member fee,” said Tiegen, who served as a spokesman for President Donald Trump. “There are other organizations that they’ll train you how to do urban warfare. They’ll train you had do all kinds of stuff. But they never show up either. That’s why I’m standing here, because they never showed up.”

Tiegen, best known for his role in the Benghazi, Libya, CIA Annex attack in 2012, filmed a UADF promo video in which he cited his experience as a Marine and CIA Global Response Staff security contractor in launching UADF and promising to train members to “defend and protect what is yours.”

“I’m John ‘Tig’ Tiegen, former GRS team member from the Benghazi Libya attack where a U.S. Ambassador and four Americans were killed. I started an organization called United American Defense Force, otherwise known as UADF. It’s a part of a bigger organization called FEC United. UADF is a defense force that’s bringing communities together to help defend and protect what is yours. So we’re going to be training people in multiple scenarios so they know how to react to the situation- they can respond accordingly under stress and duress. Our ethos is pretty much honor, courage, commitment, which I stand by from the Marine Corps. You have the honor to do what’s right. You have the commitment to continuously push forward. And you have the courage to stand up when other people back down. That’s what I stand for. And I will- we will defend your neighborhood. We will defend our cities, and we will defend your house.”

Tiegen insists his group isn’t a militia, which would be illegal in Colorado, but essentially everything else he says about the group belies that claim.

In the summer of 2020, armed UADF members attended many of the protests following George Floyd’s murder, ostensibly to “defend the community” from protestors they perceived to be part of Black Lives Matter or Antifa.

The day after the presidential election, left-wing protesters in Denver marched against Trump’s claims of election rigging, as well as generally against capitalism.

Open carry of firearms is illegal in Denver, so Tiegen and UADF members posed for a picture with their rifles in a parking lot (presumably outside city limits), before arriving at the protest still in military gear but without visible guns, though most surely had legally concealed pistols.