Colorado lawmakers defeat effort to impeach Secretary of State Jena Griswold

A Colorado Home committee killed Republicans’ quixotic bid to question Secretary of State Jena Griswold after an hours-long listening to Tuesday, dismissing allegations that Griswold ought to be eliminated for agreeing with efforts to maintain Donald Trump off of the poll due to his position within the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

The Home Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 alongside social gathering traces to kill the impeachment decision at its first hurdle. The bid to oust Griswold, a two-term Democrat, was based mostly on tweets she despatched criticizing Trump, broader allegations that she’s politicized her workplace, and for her relationship to the lawsuit that sought to maintain Trump off the poll for allegedly violating the 14th Modification.

The state Supreme Court docket ordered Trump be stored off the poll, discovering that he had engaged in an riot. That order was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court docket. Because the state’s chief election officer, Griswold was a defendant within the case. She later filed a short to the U.S. Supreme Court docket supporting the state’s capability to maintain Trump off the poll. When the state courtroom’s ruling was tossed, Trump was included within the main election that Griswold’s workplace oversaw.

Griswold, who testified to the committee and was shadowed by a safety element, referred to as the proceedings a “sham” and stated Republicans had been utilizing the proceedings to prove voters. She and different Democrats stated the allegations in opposition to her had been both inaccurate — Trump was included on the poll, as an example, and it was the state excessive courtroom that ordered him off — or had been based mostly on statements protected by Griswold’s First Modification rights.

Griswold stated she had been constant in her views: that Trump had engaged in an riot and that she would comply with no matter orders had been handed down from the courtroom.

“Three courts regarded on the query of whether or not Trump engaged in riot, they usually (dominated that he) did,” she stated. “And, once more, to be very clear: I didn’t make the choice to take away him from the lawsuit. The Colorado Supreme Court docket did.”

The impeachment decision, which was launched within the Home on Friday, was the primary in Colorado since 2004 and solely the seventh such try within the state’s historical past, in response to a memo from the Lawyer Normal’s Workplace. Led by sponsors Rep. Ryan Armagost and Minority Chief Rose Pugliese, Home Republicans hammered Griswold’s criticisms of Trump and, extra broadly, the lawsuit that tried to maintain him from the poll.

“There are numerous examples and proof to this,” Armagost stated of Griswold’s public criticism of Trump. “I feel the largest factor is simply the general rhetoric, utilizing the official place on social media, with the press and in any other case. There are occasions the place she has referred to as President Trump an insurrectionist with none conviction.”

Republicans on the committee and supportive witnesses took broad goal at Griswold, a Democrat thought of a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2026, and the way she’s run her workplace since her first election six years in the past. A lot of that expanded past the scope of the impeachment decision: Two of the Republicans’ witnesses who criticized different points of Griswold’s tenure stated that they had solely briefly reviewed the decision earlier than the listening to.

Democrats used the continuing to explain the small print of the lethal Jan. 6 riot and blast Home Republicans’ historical past of election denialism, like their vote two years in the past to thank the Jan. 6 crowd and query President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. One of many witnesses who testified in opposition to Griswold on Tuesday, former Republican Secretary of State and Trump lawyer Scott Gessler, has additionally baselessly questioned the 2020 election outcomes.