Colorado lawmakers defeat effort to impeach Secretary of State Jena Griswold

DENVER — A Colorado House committee killed Republicans’ quixotic bid to impeach Secretary of State Jena Griswold after an hours-long hearing Tuesday, dismissing allegations that Griswold should be removed for agreeing with efforts to keep Donald Trump off of the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 along party lines to kill the impeachment resolution at its first hurdle. The bid to oust Griswold, a two-term Democrat, was based on tweets she sent criticizing Trump, broader allegations that she’s politicized her office, and for her relationship to the lawsuit that sought to keep Trump off the ballot for allegedly violating the 14th Amendment.

The state Supreme Court ordered Trump be kept off the ballot, finding that he had engaged in an insurrection. That order was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. As the state’s chief election officer, Griswold was a defendant in the case. She later filed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the state’s ability to keep Trump off the ballot. When the state court’s ruling was tossed, Trump was included in the primary election that Griswold’s office oversaw.

Griswold, who testified to the committee and was shadowed by a security detail, called the proceedings a “sham” and said Republicans were using the proceedings to turn out voters. She and other Democrats said the allegations against her were either inaccurate — Trump was included on the ballot, for instance, and it was the state high court that ordered him off — or were based on statements protected by Griswold’s First Amendment rights.

Griswold said she had been consistent in her views: that Trump had engaged in an insurrection and that she would follow whatever orders were handed down from the court.

“Three courts looked at the question of whether Trump engaged in insurrection, and they (ruled that he) did,” she said. “And, again, to be very clear: I did not make the decision to remove him from the lawsuit. The Colorado Supreme Court did.”

The impeachment resolution, which was introduced in the House on Friday, was the first in Colorado since 2004 and only the seventh such attempt in the state’s history, according to a memo from the Attorney General’s Office. Led by sponsors Rep. Ryan Armagost and Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, House Republicans hammered Griswold’s criticisms of Trump and, more broadly, the lawsuit that attempted to keep him from the ballot.

“There are countless examples and evidence to this,” Armagost said of Griswold’s public criticism of Trump. “I think the biggest thing is just the overall rhetoric, using the official position on social media, with the press and otherwise. There are times where she has called President Trump an insurrectionist without any conviction.”

Republicans on the committee and supportive witnesses took broad aim at Griswold, a Democrat considered a potential gubernatorial candidate in 2026, and how she’s run her office since her first election six years ago. Much of that expanded beyond the scope of the impeachment resolution: Two of the Republicans’ witnesses who criticized other aspects of Griswold’s tenure said they had only briefly reviewed the resolution before the hearing.

Democrats used the proceeding to describe the details of the deadly Jan. 6 riot and blast House Republicans’ history of election denialism, like their vote two years ago to thank the Jan. 6 crowd and question President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. One of the witnesses who testified against Griswold on Tuesday, former Republican Secretary of State and Trump lawyer Scott Gessler, has also baselessly questioned the 2020 election results.

Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol police officer who’s now running for Congress, testified remotely on behalf of Griswold and described his experiences at the Jan. 6 riot.

Before the vote early Tuesday evening, Democratic lawmakers called the proceedings “theater” and said Republicans, who’d accused Griswold of using her office to bolster her political standing, were using impeachment for the very same reason. They repeatedly pointed to Trump’s extensive history of using social media and the bully pulpit to undermine public trust in elections.

“We had a fair election. Joe Biden was elected president. Donald Trump denied it repeatedly, to the detriment of the people of our state and our country. And now we have a situation where people don’t trust our elections, and you all have said that too,” Rep. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, told Armagost and Pugliese before the final vote.

“But you’ve tried to lay the blame on the secretary of state of the state of Colorado. Well, that’s not where the blame belongs.”

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