GREELEY, Colo. On Thursday morning, October 1, a Weld County District Court judge will decide whether a sitting member of Congress can use a civil protection order to stop a journalist from reporting on her.
Rep. Lauren Boebert filed the petition on September 24, twelve days after I submitted a sworn ethics complaint against her to the House Ethics Committee and one week after her office put out a press release calling me a perjurer. She checked the box for stalking. She checked the box for “imminent danger.” She asked the court to keep me 1,000 yards from her home and workplace and to bar me from “engaging in conduct that impairs” her employment.
Her employment is representing Colorado’s 4th District. The conduct is journalism.
This is the linchpin evidence for Boebert.
May 26, 2022 · Sky Ute Casino, Ignacio, CO · unedited, 1:06 · Watch the video
You decide. Did I try to wrestle Boebert to the ground with five police officers, two staffers, and her 250-pound, 6’2” husband standing nearby? Or did I shake a congresswoman’s hand at a public event?
What she swore to
I have read the petition several times now. So have my lawyers. It runs nine pages, and the case it makes is thinner than the paper.
Her “most recent incident,” dated September 18, is that I “resurfaced” and published an ethics complaint. The form asks what the threat or act of violence was. That is her answer.
JDF 402, page 2, section 4(a): “The most recent incident”
Location: Weld County, “all day.” I was in North Carolina.
Her “most serious incident,” dated September 22 and 23, is a tweet noting she had public court dates that week, plus a photo of her running errands that someone else posted online. “I fear that he may already be in Colorado,” she wrote. I was in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where I live.
JDF 402, page 2, section 4(b): “The most serious incident”
Her own narrative page moves the errand photo from Sept. 22 to “Sunday,” which was Sept. 20.
Attached narrative, page 2
Court dates are public record. Knowing them is called reading. She calls it stalking.
The physical allegation is from May 26, 2022, at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. She swore that I “squeezed and hurt my hand and would not let go.”
JDF 402, page 2, section 4(c)
That is the handshake in the video above. Watch it again.
On the next page, her own incident checklist for that event lists the location as Durango, 25 miles away, the physical injury as “N/A,” and police contact as none. There were five officers in the room.
JDF 401 Incident Checklist, “Grabbing” row
Same incident, different page. Location: Durango. The video is from Ignacio. Physical injury: N/A.
Attached narrative, page 1
Third telling: now she had to “forcibly pull it away.” Five officers stood there. None of them moved.
JDF 401 Incident Checklist, first two rows
Under “Harassing Phone Calls” she wrote “emails, online.” Under police contact, “No.” Four years of alleged harassment and not one police report.
She also wrote that in 2022 I “went into hiding” to avoid being served. In 2022 I was suing her for defamation in federal court under my own name. My home address appears on page 8 of her petition.
Attached narrative, page 1
“Went into hiding.” She wrote my home street address on page 8 of this very filing.
JDF 402, page 2, section 5
“Imminent danger.” From a reporter who emailed her office for comment and got no reply. That is the whole case.
Why this matters beyond me
Boebert has tried this before. In June 2022 she sought a protection order in Garfield County; a judge dismissed it on July 20 of that year at a hearing she did not attend. It did not work then. But she learned something: a restraining order is cheaper than a defamation suit and faster than a rebuttal. File the petition, issue the press release, and every headline in Colorado leads with “restraining order” instead of the $200,000 payment, the family member on the payroll, or the district director.
If it works this time, every reporter and every critic in her district will know the price of writing about her. That is the point. That is what the First Amendment was written to prevent.
What happens Thursday, and after
Two attorneys who know her playbook are representing me: the one who took Boebert to federal court with me for defamation, where we partially prevailed, and the one who beat her 2022 petition. We will answer every allegation with her own filing and the tape.
If the court denies the order, I am not going home. I intend to travel eastern Colorado, through the towns of CO-4, and tell this story in person: at public events, to local papers and radio, to the voters who will decide her future in five weeks. She has an official press office and a taxpayer-funded website. I have a car, a camera, and the record.
What I need from you
Legal fees for Thursday are $15,000. The tour after that runs on gas, halls, and printing. There are two ways to help, and both matter today, not next week.
Donate. Every dollar goes first to the legal defense, then to getting this story in front of CO-4 voters.
Subscribe. A paid subscription to this Substack is the most reliable money we have. It is what pays for records requests, sourcing, and the reporting that led to the ethics complaint in the first place. If you have been reading for free, now is the time.
She has the House Republican Conference behind her. I have you. Thursday morning we find out whether that is enough. I think it is.
If you have information about Rep. Boebert, write me directly: david@americanmuckrakers.com. Sources are protected.
David B. Wheeler
President, American Muckrakers
About the Author
David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability organization best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, the rare instance in modern politics of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because somebody bothered to do the homework. Since then, American Muckrakers has turned its attention to Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing roster of politicians who confuse public office with a personal ATM. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.
Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast with Col. Moe Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He is the author of Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book James Carville endorsed with the words “She earned every damn page. Buy it.” *He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data company built on 86.9 million FEC records that helps donors figure out where their money actually goes, which, as this essay makes clear, is a question more people should be asking.
Before all that, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production in more than 50 countries on all seven continents. Along the way he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and produced the first marathon ever run on Antarctica. His political education started early: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, intern in the United States Senate, and National Committeeman for Iowa on the Young Democrats of America national committee. David was the lead advance guy for then Senator Obama in Iowa City, Iowa, in October of 2006, and then again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, in February 2007. And, he has some good stories from both experiences.
An Iowa native and proud Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three and lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, in the district Chuck Edwards is currently failing. He believes sunlight is the best disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest guy in the room is usually the one with the most to hide.
And, Beetlejuice Boebert claimed she was going to sue him. She never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and partially won.
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This publication is First Amendment protected speech and commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals referenced are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. No portion of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler.