It sickened me to stand in line at the U.S. Supreme Court and see Dave Williams just a week after he used the state GOP email list to solicit help for election terrorist Tina Peters. Or at least to use her name to solicit funds for the flailing party Williams nominally leads.
Waiting for the oral argument in Trump v. Anderson, to begin, Williams attended as the nominal representative of the state party. They intervened in the action, presumably for the primary purpose of giving Williams a chance to stand on a soap box. The only argument they made apart from Trump in the whole case was dismissed near the outset. (Editor’s note: Mario Nicolais was one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the ballot case)
Thereafter, the GOP played a bit part. Their attorneys asked roughly five questions over the course of five days (the per-question fees paid by a broke political party seem frivolous). When they unexpectedly asked for time to argue at closing, they ended up getting chastised by the judge. They did not present at either the Colorado Supreme Court or SCOTUS.
But nonetheless, there was Williams, flown in from across the country on the party’s dime.
At the same time more than 30 past and present election officials were decrying his full-throated support of Peters back home. Under Williams’ tenure, the party email list has become little more than an alternate mode of communications for 4chan-worthy conspiracy theorists. The unyielding support for Peters is Exhibit #1.
Peters currently faces multiple criminal charges related to her illegal scheme to access, copy and disclose voter data in the systems she was charged with overseeing as a county clerk. Despite the methodical and orderly approach taken by prosecutors and the court, Peters has successfully delayed her trial for nearly a year.
Most recently, she appeared in a bathrobe with sniffles that miraculously improved over the course of a videoconference hearing. Peters claimed she had COVID, though it seems to be a strain that Trump attorney Alina Habba notoriously suffered when she missed court to party in New Hampshire. Given that the judge took the extraordinary step of ordering a doctor to provide a test, it seems he may have had the same thought.
More relevant, Peters also reported that she no longer had counsel for the trial scheduled to start in days. Apparently, there have been “irreconcilable differences” between Peters and her former lawyer. Translated, it likely means one of two things (or both): she stopped paying her attorney or she wanted them to lie to the court.
The former is the most common reason for discontinued representation, though is dependent on a court granting such withdrawal. Courts often deny such requests if made on the eve of trial — lawyers have to proceed even if not paid. That leads me to believe it was something more fundamental.
There is a good chance that Peters ordered her lawyer to say something that is demonstrably false in her defense. That is the kind of thing that can get an attorney disbarred. Of course, the attorney cannot disclose what their client told them in confidence, hence the emphatic plea of irreconcilable differences.
In either event, Peters seems to be pulling pages from the Trump playbook. While he has paid more than $50 million in attorney fees recently from his campaign coffers, despite his alleged billionaire status, he has also stiffed lawyers for decades. Rudy Giuliani just told a bankruptcy court that Trump refused to pay $2 million owed to him.
Furthermore, Trump is reputed to fire attorneys who will not do his bidding without hesitation or question. There is a good reason he has gone from established attorneys like Ty Cobb and Joe Tacopina, who quit because his “moral compass” pointed in another direction, to an attorney who would rather be pretty than smart.
That hasn’t been a winning strategy for Trump recently, and Peters may find it even less useful to her. She has pulled this stunt before and the judge is clearly wary of it. If she makes the same argument when the rescheduled trial picks up again this summer, she is likely to find herself arguing pro se.
While that might suit Peters, it is likely to land her in jail as well. Her lies will be exposed and come off as the rants of a dangerous conspiracy theorist willing to break laws and jeopardize our democracy. That won’t go over well with a law-abiding jury on the Western Slope.
Of course, she may have some fireworks up her sleeve. Who knows, maybe Dave Williams will take time from his own campaign (if voters in the 5th Congressional District have not already done us the favor of voting him out during the primary) to testify on her behalf. That is assuming that he is willing to make such statements under oath and not just on the stump.
If it serves his purpose, he may even be going by Dave “Let’s Go Tina” Williams by then.
The sooner the wheels of justice turn on Peters, and by extension, Williams, the better. Their brand of politics poisoned a once-proud party and undermined the safest elections in the country. The whole state deserves better than that.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on Twitter: @MarioNicolaiEsq.
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