DENVER (CN) — The Colorado House Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 along party lines on Tuesday against impeaching Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who championed the Colorado Supreme Court's later-reversed decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the state's primary ballot.
Two conservative house members introduced six articles of impeachment on April 4, claiming Griswold committed malfeasance in office and accusing her of failing to remain neutral on whether former president Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection and should be therefore barred from the state’s primary ballot.
"I'm trying to figure out how to make a legitimate argument against this resolution that is wholly illegitimate. In fact, your own witness called it 'ga-ga-wocka-wocka,’” said House Judiciary Committee vice chair Jennifer Bacon at the close of the six hour hearing.
“But I'm going to try to make sense of what I have heard,” the Democrat who represents Denver continued. “There is a claim against Secretary of State Jena Griswold that she tried to take Trump off the ballot, but these claims are wholly made in fantasy. It is political theater. I will remind you again that SOS Griswold did not remove Trump from the ballot. In fact, members of the Republican Party did.”
Four Republican and two independent voters sued Colorado’s secretary of state in the District Court of Denver County in September 2023, angling to keep Donald Trump’s name off the primary ballot. The voters claimed Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election — culminating in his Jan. 6 speech — disqualify him from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment.
While the former president joined as an intervening party, the voters named Secretary of State Jena Griswold as a defendant on their lawsuit. Throughout the process, however, Griswold did not take a public stance on whether Trump should appear on the ballot, and instead committed to following the court’s orders.
After holding an expedited court trial, Second Judicial District Judge Sara Wallace found Trump had committed insurrection, but declined to remove him from the ballot, after finding the Fourteenth Amendment ambiguous as to whether it covered a president.
After affirming that Trump engaged in insurrection, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Trump to be removed from the primary election ballot. Trump then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling after finding states cannot remove federal candidates from the ballot.
Because ballots were mailed out in advance of the March primary and the Supreme Court's ruling, Griswold opted to print Trump's name on the ballot. The Supreme Court ruling resulted in the secretary of state's office officially counting votes for Trump.
“My position has always been clear: Trump engaged in an insurrection and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and that I would follow the court’s order,” Griswold said during the hearing. “I would not support an insurrection from either party and I would hope you would not either.”
Representatives on both sides of the aisle accused the other side of politicizing the issue.
“This is not a waste of time, but our duty as a legislature to engage in debate,” said minority leader Rose Pugliese, from El Paso County, who sponsored the measure. “Americans have the right to vote for or against a candidate.”
In addition to "demonstrating her unfitness for office by engaging in misconduct that will disrupt the 2024 Republican primary election in Colorado," the measure claimed Griswold abused "the public trust and prejudice[ed] the public's confidence."
Although the articles of impeachment focused on the issue of Trump appearing on the ballot, the hearing unraveled around turnover in Griswold’s office and disagreements with whether she should put her face on pamphlets encouraging people to vote.
Scott Gessler, a former Republican secretary of state and the attorney who represented Trump in the Denver case, was one of four witnesses to testify in support of advancing the impeachment resolution. Gessler claimed the Colorado lawsuit only moved forward because Griswold supported it.
“What happened in this case is an out-of-state group rolled into town and the secretary of state clicked her heels and did their bidding,” Gessler said.
In claiming Griswold “goosed the standards,” Gessler said her legal team blocked discovery when requested by Trump’s team, but advocated for depositions when the voter plaintiffs asked for them.
One of the Republican representatives who voted in favor of the bill said he did so because he thought the issue should be put before the full House and not just a committee.
“The vote here is important but I do not want this discussion to end here, I think this is a topic the entire House should take up,” said Matt Sopper, a Republican representing Mesa and Delta counties. “We shouldn’t be arbitrarily denying our other colleagues the opportunity to weigh in on this issue.”
On March 5, Trump did appear on the Republican primary ballot and won 24 delegates with 63% of the vote. The Colorado GOP also allocated 12 delegates to former UN ambassador Nikki Haley who received 33% of the state's vote before suspending her campaign the following day.
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