February 02, 2023 04:02 PM UTC

Militiaman Mayor For Colorado Springs, Anyone?

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: We’re still waiting to hear if John Tiegen is even eligible to run for Mayor of Colorado Springs given that he openly admits to voting in Pueblo County in November 2022. Tiegen claims he’s a victim rather than just an idiot:

#ColoradoSprings mayoral candidate @JohnTiegen told @KRDONC13 it’s the city who is “trying to kick (him) off the ballot.”

It centers around a residency dispute. Tiegen says he’s lived in COS for the required one year, but then admitted to us he voted in Pueblo County in November https://t.co/cKjD8KvedT pic.twitter.com/GFAMvMrChw

— Spencer Soicher KRDO (@spencersoicher) January 30, 2023

As you can read in the replies to the tweet above, Tiegen seems completely oblivious to the problem here.

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As the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Mary Shinn reported last week, the race for Mayor of our state’s most conservative large city, which like Denver’s upcoming mayoral race features a long list of variably qualified candidates, is being shaken up by the entry of the only candidate for office we know of in Colorado with an armed combat force at his personal command:

The founder of a local militia group, John “Tig” Tiegen, jumped into the crowded race for Colorado Springs mayor this week.

Tiegen is one of 12 vying to replace Mayor John Suthers, who is term-limited and cannot run again. He is facing off against some well-known names, such as City Councilman and former Secretary of State Wayne Williams and former City Councilwoman Sallie Clark, El Paso County Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez and businessman Yemi Mobolade…

Tiegen fought to repel the 2012 attacks on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and collaborated with other security team members and author Mitchell Zuckoff for the book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.”

In recent years, he founded the United American Defense Force, a group that pledged to stand up to mobs causing mayhem. It also promises to stand up to human trafficking.

A year ago, Colorado Newsline’s Chase Woodruff reported on Tiegen’s expressed worry that a civil war was imminent unless conservatives were victorious in the 2022 elections:

“I see a war coming, if we don’t stand together,” Tiegen said. “And trust me, you don’t want to see it. A lot of veterans — I’ve seen it — there are some veterans that pray for it here in the U.S., which is stupid.”

The UADF, founded by Tiegen in the wake of nationwide 2020 protests over police violence, bills itself as a “humanitarian aid organization” with a “parallel mission” of armed defense. Tiegen regularly posted images of group members training and posing with firearms before his social media accounts were eventually suspended late last year.

Tiegen and the UADF organized the October 2020 “Patriot Muster” rally in downtown Denver, which turned deadly when a man was fatally shot by a security guard employed by a local news station.

As might be expected from the commander of election conspiracy theorist and founder of FEC United Joe Oltmann’s armed militia unit, Tiegen also believes neither the 2020 presidential election nor the 2022 gubernatorial election in Arizona were legitimately decided. And that presents the question: if you don’t believe that American elections are legitimate, why run for office at all? Is running for office against a large slate of better-known conservative candidates just a stunt to energize Tiegen’s militiaman side hustle?

We’ll all find out together when it’s time for Tiegen to concede.