Silverman: Trump’s Big Lie is flowing through Colorado

Donald Trump’s Big Lie has major tributaries flowing out of Colorado from both sides of our Continental Divide. Tina Peters, Randy Corporon and Joe Oltmann, all broadcast Big Lie bombast last week, but in their defense, they were consistent with the ridiculous ravings of our former president and the My Pillow guy.

Thankfully, there remain reasonable Republicans, even on the Western Slope. Former (six-term) Congressman Scott McInnis wanted to air his perspective on the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters’ controversy, and appeared on my latest podcast. 

Acting now as a multi-term Mesa County Commissioner, McInnis stood up to his fellow Republican, Peters. Peters is credibly accused of inventing allegations against Dominion Voting Systems, in order to please Mike Lindell and Trump. In the process, according to McInnis, Peters has cost taxpayers about a million dollars to address her mess.  

All three GOP Mesa County commissioners joined Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s lawsuit to enjoin Peters from supervising Mesa County’s 2021 election. 

In her detailed ruling, Mesa County District Court Judge Valerie Robison slammed Peters for wrongful acts and dishonesty. Judge Robison prohibited Peters from acting as Mesa County’s designated election official. Last Wednesday, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected Peters’ appeal. 

Trumpworld still craves the Dominion part of the Big Lie. Facts don’t matter. In Denver District Court, a defamation lawsuit has been brought by Dominion executive Dr. Eric Coomer, who contends he was falsely accused by podcaster Joe Oltmann of confessing to rigging the 2020 election during an “infiltrated Antifa call.” Smart and/or apolitical defense attorneys would advise their clients to distance themselves from Oltmann, blaming him as the messenger.

Randy Corporon is local counsel for Coomer defendants The Gateway Pundit and its owner, James Hoft. Corporon is also an elected Colorado Republican National Committeeman, and 2020 Republican National Convention-attending Trump delegate. Last Thursday, Corporon appeared on LindellTV, where he vouched for Oltmann, and then explained how Coomer allegedly caused Dominion to sabotage Trump.

Corporon lionized his “incredibly smart” friend Oltmann as a Colorado businessman who, prior to the 2020 election, was “never a political beast of any sort.” That’s odd. In friendly interviews Nov. 17 and 18, 2020, on The Peter Boyles Show, Oltmann explained hosting his Conservative Daily podcast for the past 11 years under his pseudonym, Joe Otto. 

On LindellTV, Corporon claimed Dominion was being investigated by the Justice Department for RICO violations! This civil-RICO theory has been advanced by Trump-linked lawyers, as encouraged by Lindell and Coomer defendant Sidney Powell. 

On LindellTV, Corporon threw shade on Denver District Court Judge Marie Avery Moses, decrying her decision to allow discovery and depositions. Corporon also complained that the supposedly threatened Coomer was favored by Moses over the oft-threatened Oltmann.  

Corporon was more diplomatic than Oltmann had been a week earlier on his own Conservative Daily airwaves. Oltmann broadcast that Moses is a radical leftist judge, incapable of providing a fair trial, and that she belongs in jail.

As if performing for Trump and Lindell, Corporon continued last Thursday to maintain the 2020 election was “far from over,” and he expected Arizona would decertify followed by Georgia and Pennsylvania (cue the Howard Dean scream). Even the barely involved LindellTV interviewer Tamara Scott seemed startled, and asked if Corporon, as an attorney, really had this confidence. The Colorado-licensed lawyer confirmed his optimism. 

Tina Peters also experienced a softball, but revealing, interview last Thursday with anchor Logan Wilber on Grand Junction’s Fox affiliate KREX-5. Declaring “I’ve committed no crime,” Peters admitted taking Dominion imaging to Lindell; and maintained her Dominion voting machines were hacked and 29,000 election files deleted by someone via the internet.

Mesa County’s clerk and recorder also claimed she was forced into hiding following her star appearance at the voter-fraud conspiracy theory event hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, by the My Pillow guy. McInnis told me Peters traveled by private Lindell jet, reportedly after paying $484 of Mesa County money for a United Airlines flight. 

Perhaps Peters was vulnerable to influence by wealthy, exciting, powerful co-religionists with professed higher callings. After hearing Trump-Corporon- Oltmann-Lindell-like complaints about Dominion, Peters decided she must “listen to the people who put me in that position. I don’t pretend to know everything, and I believe there are very very smart people out there. And I need to listen to them. These are people that I love. These are people that I serve.”

Backing Peters all the way is Joe Oltmann. Trump’s Big Lie led directly to insurrectionists attacking America’s Capitol and democracy.

On his podcast last week, Oltmann declared that those jailed did nothing wrong and legitimately arrived to “redress grievances” of massive election fraud by Dominion.” 

Oltmann then declared Peters’ Mesa County whistleblowing further proof Dominion rigged the election. 

Are Peters, Oltmann and Corporon now mainstream Republicans, or are most Republicans more like McInnis and his fellow Mesa County commissioners? America’s survival depends on GOP elected officials with the decency to condemn efforts by their own party leaders to corrupt local election results. 

Craig Silverman is a former Denver chief deputy DA who also has worked in the media for decades. Craig is columnist at large for The Colorado Sun. He practices law at the Denver law firm of Springer & Steinberg, P.C. and is host of The Craig Silverman Show podcast.