September 21, 2023 04:51 PM UTC

The Colorado GOP is Getting Some Bad Advice...But From Whom?

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Apparently Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder noticed the same thing and published his own story just a little earlier than ours. Maulbetsch also notes that State Republican Party Treasurer Tom Bjorkland was paid $5,000 for “Treasury Services” via his own business entity called “Tactical Data Solutions, Inc.”

If you happen to work for the Colorado GOP and have yet to receive a paycheck, you might want to head over to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and make yourself a business entity.

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Things have been quite the mess for the Colorado Republican Party for many years now, but Chairman Dave Williams has taken that mess to a whole new level since being installed as the new head honcho in March.

Instead of focusing on fundraising and helping Republican candidates prepare for 2024, Williams has wandered off in multiple different directions in the last few months:

♦ He “negotiated” an “alliance” with the Colorado Libertarian Party that has turned out to be a worse idea than injecting yourself with bleach in order to fight off COVID-19;

♦ Williams regularly trolls members of the LGBTQ community and recently emerged as the registered agent for a group trying to get an anti-transgender measure on the 2024 ballot;

♦ He keeps trying to get Republicans to vote in favor of a proposal to opt-out of Colorado’s open primary system. Since Republican committee members keep voting him down, Williams is using the State GOP to file a second lawsuit against the Colorado Secretary of State’s office…AND he has retained the services of (soon to be disbarred) attorney John Eastman, whose name you’ll remember on account of his work trying to organize a coup to keep Donald Trump in power;

♦ Williams is also pushing for new party bylaws that would “assume” that someone who doesn’t show up to vote at a central committee meeting was probably planning to vote YES on whatever was being discussed;

Williams accomplishes all of this when he takes a break from attacking other Colorado Republicans for one reason or another. We also know he hasn’t been that busy raising money for a staff that has yet to receive a paycheck; Williams has been saying publicly that he purposely didn’t try to raise money after becoming GOP Chair because of…reasons.

Anyhoo, this got us wondering about whether all of this crackpottery comes solely from inside Williams’s melon or if there have been other outside consultants chirping in his ear. We looked up recent expenditures for the Colorado Republican Committee federal account — which is traditionally the account that the Colorado GOP uses for day-to-day needs such as rent, electricity, salaries, etc. — and lo and behold, look what we found:

The Colorado Republican Committee made a $2,500 payment on August 21, 2023 to “Fox Group Ltd” for “Chairman Consulting for GOP.”

We’d never heard of “Fox Group Ltd,” so we looked up the entity registration on the Colorado Secretary of State’s website:

“Fox Group Ltd” is a business entity in good standing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. Its registered agent is a guy named…David Williams?

Hmm…

Maybe “David Williams” is a different person than GOP Party Chair Dave Williams? After all, it is a common name. So we checked the address of “Fox Group Ltd” and the voter registration address for Dave Williams (which is public information), and lo and behold…

Yeah, you figured it out by now. It’s the same guy (if you need further proof, this is also the address that Williams used for his State Representative campaigns).

The person doing “Chairman Consulting” for the State Republican Party is, in fact, the same person who is ACTUALLY the Chairman for the Colorado Republican Party.

To paraphrase Lil’ Wayne, Dave Williams is talking to himself because he is his own consultant.

This is weird for a number of reasons. As far as we can tell, nobody at the State Republican Party has received a paycheck yet (if anybody is even there doing work…or if they even have an office anymore). But Williams has still found a way to make some money by creating a silly expenditure paid out to his own business entity.

Is this legal? Sure. Is it a little shady? Yes. Is it totally and completely in-character for Williams? You betcha!

If and when the Colorado GOP does find enough money to pay for staff salaries, it will be fun to see if Williams is paid for the time he spends advising himself.