Chuck Edwards is out.
Tuesday we published his texts and told him to resign. Wednesday, 5 a.m., he quit his campaign. And no, I don’t think it was our headline that did it. It was his own thumbs. A thousand pages of his messages, produced to the Ethics Committee, sitting there in black and white. All we did was make sure the people of Western North Carolina got to read what he wrote.
Since Wednesday my phone hasn’t stopped. Reporters, donors, a couple of old friends from Iowa, all asking some version of the same question: how did it happen so fast?
It didn’t. That’s the answer nobody wants. What you saw was the last 48 hours of a file that took years. The boring years are the whole trick.
Which brings me to the file I’ve been keeping longer than any other.
She threatened to sue us. We sued her instead.
Boebert and I go back to 2022. That summer she got herself on national TV promising to sue us for defamation. She didn’t stop there, either. She told the press our donors had legal exposure too. Read that twice. A sitting member of Congress threatening ordinary people because they gave twenty bucks to her critics.
Her lawsuit never showed up. Mine did. June 2023, federal court in Denver, American Muckrakers and me as plaintiffs, Lauren Opal Boebert as defendant. She moved to have it tossed. Magistrate Judge Kathryn A. Starnella said no. In her written opinion the judge found Boebert defamed me five times, and she ruled the donor threats weren’t protected speech because they were never made in good faith or in serious contemplation of actually filing anything. Which is the polite judicial way of saying the tough talk was hot air.
We settled this past June. The terms are confidential and they’re staying that way. I have no complaints. Make of that what you will.
And here’s the thing people miss about those four years: the lawsuit was never the main event. While all that ground along, we filed an ethics complaint with the House Office of Congressional Ethics. We sent a 42-page complaint to the DOJ and the Denver FBI about her cozy arrangement with Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario. Every page of that one came from emails we shook loose ourselves through Colorado Open Records Act requests. No leaks. No unnamed sources. Their own words, pried out one records request at a time. The Colorado Secretary of State opened an investigation, and their legal analyst found sufficient evidence that Vallario used his badge to promote Boebert and trash her primary opponent.
Records requests. Court filings. Paper. It’s tedious work and nobody makes movies about it. Chuck Edwards could tell you how it ends.
The half million that went dark
Now my favorite chapter, and I mean favorite the way you mean it about a toothache.
Her 2020 financial disclosure reports $478,386 in spousal income from something called Terra Energy “Productions.” Go ahead, look that company up. I tried. Can’t find it. The real outfit, the one the county drilling permits actually tie her then-husband to, is TEP Rocky Mountain.
Okay, maybe somebody botched a form. It happens. Except the next year the income moves into a family LLC and the number turns into “N/A.” Same husband. Same rigs. The permits show him doing the same work into January 2023 at least. Nothing about the job changed. Only what the public got to see changed. Nearly half a million a year in oil and gas money, gone dark, while she sat on the Natural Resources Committee casting votes on oil and gas.
She disclosed it once, so she knew exactly how. Then she quit doing it.
What’s filed and what’s coming
We’re at the FEC too. Last August I filed a sworn complaint against Lauren Boebert for Congress and against Boebert personally for spending campaign money on herself. The FEC docketed it as MUR 8390. We’ve amended it twice since, because the file keeps growing.
Amendment one: $12,299.80 her campaign paid to the Tideline Ocean Resort and Spa in Palm Beach, reported as “Travel” and “Event Site Rental.” Small problem. On the same day as a $7,032.76 charge at that resort, her own social media has her at Woody’s Q Shack in Alamosa, Colorado. On the day of another charge, $2,844.04, she’s documented in Washington. I’ve produced events on all seven continents and I’ve never figured out how to host one at a Florida spa from two time zones away.
Amendment two, filed this June, is the rodeo. May 12, 2025, her fundraising committee sends $35,000.00 to Professional Bull Riders, LLC. The report says “EVENT SITE RENTAL/TICKETS.” Four days later? Kid Rock’s Rock N Rodeo at AT&T Stadium, and there’s Boebert, attending with family and friends. Thirty-five grand of donor money. We’ve asked the FEC to subpoena PBR’s records so we can all find out who used that access.
The FEC’s Office of General Counsel confirmed receipt in June. She’s being served. It’s pending, and you’ll hear about every development here first.
Two ethics complaints against her are pending as I write this, too. But circle this on your calendar, because this is the part that matters most right now: next month Lauren Boebert walks into a courtroom twice in one week. Her son Tyler has two sentencing hearings, September 4 in Weld County (case 2025M2424, 1:30 p.m., courtroom 8, in person) and September 10 in Garfield County (case 2024CR57, 1:30 p.m., courtroom C). She’s expected to speak on his behalf at both.
Look, I’m a father of three. I understand wanting to stand up for your kid, and I won’t pretend I wouldn’t. But most parents walk into that room with nothing but love and a clean shirt. She walks in with a congressional title and a national profile, hoping the scales tip her son’s way because of who his mother is. That’s not parenting. That’s leverage. And it deserves witnesses.
Help us get this coverage live
I don’t want you reading a spokesman’s cleanup statement the next morning. I want you watching. We have expanded media coverage requests pending in front of both judges, Weld and Garfield, to bring these hearings to you live from the courtroom.
It costs real money. Two hearings, two counties, travel, filings, records fees, broadcast logistics, and we do it without a dime of corporate cash. Never taken any. If you want to see what Lauren Boebert says to those judges, in public, on the record, no spin room in sight, chip in today: DONATE HERE PLEASE!
Every dollar goes to the coverage. First hearing is September 4. That’s four weeks out.
Why any of this works
Here’s what politicians actually count on. Not that you’ll forgive them. That you’ll forget. Ride out the ugly week, wait for the next shiny object, and the whole thing just evaporates. Usually they’re right, too. Scandals don’t die because they weren’t true. They die because nobody kept the file.
Somebody kept the file on Chuck Edwards. Look how that week went.
I’ve kept the Boebert file since 2022. A federal defamation case we won our rulings in and settled on terms I’m happy with. An FEC complaint, twice amended, pending right now. Ethics complaints. Records requests. Disclosure filings. Drilling permits. Edwards wasn’t the finish line. Edwards was the proof of concept, and the concept is simple: paper beats spin, every time, eventually.
Lauren Boebert is next.
Big D
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.
Paid for by American Muckrakers PAC II (americanmuckrakers.com). Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Donations made to American Muckrakers, Inc. are not deductible for federal or state tax purposes.
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.
She was "selected" by Ted Cruz et co to do their bidding. She was never a politician, in the sense of a person with a platform and a purpose, aligned with a group of others, with a constituency. She was a shill. So delighted in your work, David. I am buckled in!
Keep on fighting the good fight!