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March 28, 2014 10:03 AM UTC

Tim Neville's Statement Does Not Make Suspicions Of Link Between Him/RMGO And Nathaniel Marshall Unfounded

  • 20 Comments
  • by: ElliotFladen

(Worse and worse – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Colorado Independent has been investigating the circumstances that led to Nathaniel Marshall, a person with significant ties to white supremacism, to enter the race for Colorado HD-23.  As an early result of that investigation, the Independent's John Tomasic reported yesterday that signs had emerged indicating that Tim Neville – a person with significant ties to Rocky Mountain Gun Owner's Association ("RMGO") – recruited Nathaniel Marshall to run for HD-23.  The signs relied on by Tomasic's article consisted of the following:

1) Rick Enstrom, a prominent candy business executive and onetime Republican House candidate, specifically claiming that Marshall admitted he was recruited by Neville at the Jefferson County Assembly ("Enstrom's Statements")

2) Dudley Brown, RMGO's Executive Director, admitting that per RMGO political director Joe Neville, Tim Neville spoke with Marshall at "an event" ("Brown's Statement")

In response to Tomasic's article, Tim Neville last night put forth the following statement on Facebook (accessible here):

"Regarding the leftist hit piece published today posing as a news story in the Colorado Independent:  I spoke with its author John Tomasik [sic] and told him I had no connection with Mr. Marshall's campaign– not as an endorser or financial donor or supporter.   I suggested Mr. Tomasic retract his story because it’s false.  Then he asked me if I ever met Mr. Marshall and I had to explain to him that I meet hundreds of people each week on the campaign trail.  Then he hung up on me.  Shocked?  No, but I'm very disappointed that a Republican like Rick Enstrom would spread such a story without even a phone call to me.  I believe he knows my number, since his campaign had no problem finding me when I helped him as a volunteer to walk his precincts in 2012.     These types of attacks only embolden me to fight even harder for you.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your calls and emails of support tonight.Iron sharpens iron. Together I look forward to taking back Senate District 16 this November and winning a Republican majority.   Game on!" (emphasis added)

While Tim Neville may wish that his mere claim that a story is false is sufficient to demonstrate that a story is in fact false, that is not the case.  Here, there is evidence to indicate that Neville – and through him potentially RMGO – recruited White Supremacist Nathaniel Marshall to run for HD-23.  The first two pieces of evidence are the Enstrom and Brown Statements.  In addition to those statements, last night Nathaniel Marshall revealed that he had been invited to an RMGO fundraiser as a candidate and that now they were throwing him "under the bus".  Moreover, recruiting Nathaniel Marshall would fit within a perceived pattern of RMGO supporting candidates who repeat its party line but who are poorly vetted – the chief example being former pornographic novel writer Jaxine Bubis.

Moreover, there is an additional factor: Nathaniel Marshall is admittedly not a "media savvy" person, but there are signs he may have been well-coached for his TV Interview with Mark Meredith of Fox 31 last night (the "Interview").  First off, he was able to open the recorded portion of the interview with a polished "I just think it is just a good idea for me to step aside and … I'll just be a voter" statement.  Afterwards, while implicitly admitting to being the Stormfront.com poster "NateTheWatcher", Marshall claimed in the Interview that the basis of him joining Stromfront was largely opposition towards "Islam and Sharia law", which is popular in certain respected Conservative circles.  He also claimed not to be a Nazi or a racist, but did admit to "attending" an Aryan "meetup" in Jefferson county last year.  That said, he claimed the "meetup" was not what he expected because there were only "8 or 9 people" that showed up so he "almost left".  Of course, the interview was a sugar coating.  Marshall was involved in Stormfront for far more than to just protest Islam.  He openly supported "the Klan", attacked homosexuals, and had issues with Jews, Hispanics and African Americans because of his worries about the "white genocide".  He even used Stormfront to attempt to distribute his more than 50 copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf.  Even Marshall's issues with Islam went beyond mere opposition to sharia law.  Additionally, Marshall didn't just attend an Aryan "meetup" – he sought … to ….organize …them and set up his own group called Aryan Storm.  Yet, in spite of all of these issues he somehow had the foresight to give a very good media interview under the circumstances.  While that could be attributed to luck – it may also be that he had some astute coaching.  And lone wolves who post on Stormfront are not the sort of people who just randomly get good coaching.

For these reasons although there is not yet evidence of a smoking gun RMGO endorsement or other involvement in encouraging Marshall to run, there is a lot of smoke.  And where there is smoke, there could have been a fire.   If RMGO wants to put this to rest a good first step would be to (a) clarify the event that Dudley Brown was speaking about when he stated that Tim Neville had spoken with Marshall before; (b) clarify Neville's current and past role in RMGO's vetting process; (c) clarify its vetting process in general; and (d) specifically reveal if Nathaniel Marshall has attended any events, which events, and whether he has received any RMGO or RMGO-allied money or promises of money from fundraisers, employment, consulting services or anything similar in past year.  What will not put these suspicions to rest though is a bare protest by Tim Neville that this is "false."   Because while there may not enough yet to conclude that he or RMGO had involvement with Marshall, there is enough to be suspicious that they were the ones pulling the strings.

This piece was originally published on the Colorado Independent by me.

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20 thoughts on “Tim Neville’s Statement Does Not Make Suspicions Of Link Between Him/RMGO And Nathaniel Marshall Unfounded”

  3. The Republicans nominate someone for office.  They find out he may be a racist. They pressure him to drop out.  He drops out.  That is pretty much the way it is supposed to work.  They made a mistake and they fixed it.

    So what is the story now?  Something does not make a suspicion unfounded?

    Who cares?

    I have a suspicion that 90% of the people on Colorado Pols are communists.

    Does that make them communists?  No.

    If anyone cares about what is important it is what is the link, if any, not whether EF thinks something is suspicious or not.

    So what is the link that you can prove Elliot?  Someone appeared well coached? Does that tell us who coached them?

    Getting to the bottom of this is in everybody's interest.

    Indulging in mental gymnastics about suspicions, unproven or contrived, implying that others, not Marshall, are racists when you have no proof, just makes you a useful idiot for the left.

  4. AC,
    Nice dodge.  The evidence is a bit more than "mental gymnastics". 

    Let's review again
    1) Enstrom claims Marshall admitted Neville recruited him to run
    2) Dudley admits that his peeps (specifically Neville's son) were told that Neville spoke with Marshall at an event
    3) Marshall claims he was invited, as a candidate to an RMGO event. 
    4) Marshall was well-prepared to give a TV interview. Too well prepared. 

    Nobody ever claimed this was conclusive.  But it is significantly more than mere mental gymnastics.  

    1. I agree that a lot of this does turn on how much anything from Marshall's mouth can be believed.  For example, did Neville recruit Marshall, or did Neville just make some random compliment that Marshall exaggerated in his mind out of delusions of grandure?  Was Marshall personally invited to an RMGO event as a candidate or was he simply given a generic invitation after he got past assembly? 

      On the other hand, I don't exactly trust Neville on this either.  Neville claims that Tomsiac hung up on him, but that not only would not be in Tomasic's interest, but Tomasic just assured me it is flatly false.  And Dudley's group does have a history of both screwing up vetting (Jax Bubis) and also not always being truthful on political matters (Mario Nicolais being supposedly "anti gun").

      And that is why I have said this is just suspicious.  Where did Marshall get Neville's name from after all?  If he had delusions of grandure, why not say Dudley invited him?  If he is so nuts, why did he come off so polished in a difficult media interview?

      These are the questions that are nagging me. And because of them, I am not sure what to believe at this moment.

      1. Elliot:

        I am not sure what took place either.

        Unlike some of the left wing wackos who chime racist at the mention of Obama, I think the standard for painting people as such should be higher than the "not make the suspicion unfounded" standard.

        1. AC, painting people as what?  If Neville asked Marshall to run, that doesn't make him necessarily a bad guy.  It just means he did a poor job vetting.  

        2. Remember, the story of Neville's involvement with Marshall came FIRST from Republican Rick Enstrom, who tweeted about it. Nobody was trying to make that connection independently — Enstrom opened the floodgates.

        3. You know A.C. it would be a lot easier to refrain from the racist accusationif so many of your people hadn't circulated or looked the other way at the bone in the nose photoshop.As with this case there's more than enough evidence to justify the charges being made.

  5. To me the question is: was Marshall a last-minute stand-in, or was he promoted by GOP insders like Neville or Brown?

    "Tim Neville encouraged me to run" Marshall with no opponents at the caucuses or HD-23 assembly means the GOP wasn't really trying to contest HD-23 at all. It means their bench in that district is pathetically weak.

    "The way was cleared for me" Marshall means the GOP either did a lousy job interviewing their candidates, or they knew who Marshall was and didn't care, or both.

    1. Or, of course, for the conspiracy minded, putting Marshall in the race was a move designed to delay presenting a strong candidate that the GOP thinks will really shake up the race. Marshall was always going to bow out, and the vacancy committee would be able to name a candidate later in the cycle.

        1. I'd say that Marshall's statement rules out the conspiracy theory part (and proves that ALL CAPS isn't dead…).

          This looks an awful lot like a simple continuation of the RMGO/TP vs. JeffCo GOP fight, in which the poor, persecuted RMGO and TP are so horribly oppressed that they managed to get their candidates top line on various ballots the other week.

    2. There aren't any financial tracks available yet. Marshall doesn't have to file until May 5. No contributions recorded to Marshall from Dudley Brown or RMGO.

      1. I think the invitation issue is now overstated.  Looks to have just been a generic invite from what I have seen that people get in a mass mailer.  Unless there was a seperate invite apart from what I have seen.

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