April 10, 2025 11:02 AM UTC

Kathleen Sgamma Becomes The Unlikeliest January 6th Martyr

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• by: Colorado Pols

A major development with local and national implications reported by the Colorado Sun’s Jason Blevins this morning, Kathleen Sgamma, the longtime Colorado-based oil and gas booster nominated by President Donald Trump with the support of fellow Coloradan Energy Secretary Chris Wright to lead the Bureau of Land Management, suddenly withdrew from the confirmation process:

The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources early Thursday was set to discuss Sgamma’s nomination by President Donald Trump.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, the chairman of the committee and a Republican from Utah, said he was informed early Thursday by the White House that Sgamma had withdrawn her name from consideration to run the BLM. An email sent to Sgamma early Thursday said she was in D.C. for her confirmation hearing…

Sgamma, who lives in Denver, has led the Western Energy Alliance since 2006, advocating for oil and gas producers amid calls for cleaner energy and better protection of natural landscapes. Sgamma was an outspoken critic of former President Joe Biden’s increased regulation of fossil fuels.

A sharp-witted combatant against Colorado’s increasing environmental and public health regulations targeting the fossil fuel industry, Sgamma seemed like a natural choice to run the BLM and prosecute the Trump administration’s headlong “Drill Baby Drill” agenda.

But this week, a letter from Sgamma to her colleagues in the Western Energy Alliance dated January 7th, 2021 was, as they say in the world of opposition research, “resurfaced” at what appears to have been the worst possible moment for Sgamma’s career:

One possible explanation in Sgamma’s sudden reversal is a memo she sent to Western Energy Alliance members on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Reported this week by watchdog reporting project Documented, Sgamma’s memo said she was “disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it.”

Oops.

Here’s the full text of Sgamma’s January 7th letter to colleagues via the investigative journalism project known as “Documented.” It is as unsparing in its criticism of Trump and the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that it could have been written by…well, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, or just about anyone in either party in the immediate aftermath of that day.

Of course as we all know, McConnell, McCarthy, and virtually every other Republican who condemned Trump in the aftermath of January 6th came crawling back to Trump in the months afterward, and welcomed Trump back to the White House after last November’s elections. And to be clear, so did Kathleen Sgamma:

Sgamma in January celebrated Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, which increased energy exploration and production on federal land. Sgamma, in a statement, said the order reduced “regulatory damage” by the Biden administration. [Pols emphasis]

As Colorado Public Radio reports, Sgamma even authored the section of “Project 2025” pertaining to drilling baby drilling:

Sgamma helped author the section of the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership. The policy guidebook called for reversing President Biden’s “war on fossil fuels” by ending regulations meant to slow climate change and restoring oil and gas leases on public lands. It also recommended that the federal government return BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, a move President Trump enacted in his first term before former President Biden reversed the decisions.

But all of that wasn’t enough to overcome Sgamma’s cardinal error: condemning the January 6th insurrection along with almost everyone else in America on January 7th. It’s another indicator of the total devotion the Trump administration requires today, including the wholesale revision of history with respect to the 2020 elections and Trump’s incitement of violence on January 6th, 2021 in order to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Kathleen Sgamma was right on January 7th, 2021, but between that time and the present Sgamma sold out the principle she demonstrated on that day to help the oil and gas industry make more money.

And that moral capitulation still wasn’t enough to save her.