The hit piece penned by Quentin Young raises serious questions. Was the paid propaganda attack on Col. Shawn Smith USAF (ret.) requested by Griswold or her legal handlers and carried out by Young? Smith’s months-long work has exposed alleged crimes by SecState that are now required by law to be investigated. Is the press smear meant to build a case for law enforcement action as retaliation against Smith?
On February 13, 2022 Colorado Newsline editor contacted Col. Shawn Smith USAF (ret.) for comment on a video Young had surfaced from “Sedition Hunters” showing Smith at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Smith mentioned he did not know which video Young was referencing, Young did not initially send the video to Smith, so Smith made an agreement with Young that he would watch the video and prepare comments to be submitted the morning of Feb. 14th.
Young acknowledged the exchange, yet a few hours later, Young published his article without Smith’s comments. Young’s headline reads Jan 6 videos said to show Colorado election denier Shawn Smith clashing with Police. The article’s subhead Activist on Thursday called for Colorado Secretary of State to hang. Interestingly, Quentin Young had numerous exchanges back and forth with Smith on the 13th. Clearly Young was penning the article, yet the byline of the piece credits NEWSLINE STAFF. Obviously Young avoided taking personal or public responsiblility for the piece.
Through creative editing, conflating bits of information some true, some false, failing to include Smith’s full quotes; the piece is so riddled with inaccuracies and falsehoods, there’s no way to correct the record effectively. In Smith’s words, “Young states that I am an ‘election denier,’ ‘clashing with police’ on Jan. 6 videos, and that I ‘called for CO secretary of state to hang.’ THESE ARE LIES.” To remedy the situation, Smith has requested the entire article be fully removed from the internet and all social media platforms. Given it’s a specifically crafted hit piece based on “lies” designed to discredit Smith and pin him as a violent, threatening individual Smith’s demands are reasonable.
The 30,000 foot view
Smears and attacks from the press against anyone working on restoring free and fair elections are common and predictable at this point. The latest announcement from the DHS posted last week ratchets up the pressure by outlining more specifics on identifying domestic terrorists and linking anyone who questions the U.S. election process. This latest release signals the DHS and DOJ are serious about pursuing “domestic terrorists” associated with election integrity. With the DHS announcement, this now gives the press more power to vilify anyone speaking out about election integrity. Lies, falsehoods and smears in the press can now be used to build cases against citizens who are simply exercising their first amendment rights.
The curious confluence of events suggest the timing of the hit piece and the false accusations is no accident. Young writes a hit piece on Smith based on video more than a year old, yet tells Smith its “breaking news”. Coincidentally, DHS release had just been published. Meanwhile, in the background SecState Griswold is facing a serious lawsuit filed by election officials in Colorado (Hanks et al vs. Griswold.) A lawsuit on which Smith has been publicly commenting.
The connection between the DHS announcement and Young’s press hit job on Smith seems plausible, but weak. However the backdrop of the events that unfolded over the past few weeks in Colorado show the connection is hard to dismiss. The question is what role is Quentin Young and CO Newsline playing in building a potential case against Smith, and why?
Follow the money
It’s important to understand how Colorado Newsline and Young is funded. Links have been discovered starting with George Soros, et al, through Arabella. That connects through 1630 dark money fund, links through North Fund, through States News, which supports Colorado Newsline. In addition, North Fund also supports Democracy Docket LLC/-Action Fund/-Legal Fund. These are Russiagate/Clinton lawyer Marc Elias’ funds.
Why is the funding critical? Marc Elias formerly of Perkins Coie now has his own law firm Elias Law. Elias has a strong staff of former Coiers and substantial financing backing his firm. Elias has been in the news most famously for playing a key role in the Transition Integrity Project which is widely known for wargaming how to ensure Biden emerged victorious in the 2020 election. Most recently, Elias is all over headlines associated with the Durham Report. Earlier this year, Elias’ Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussman was indicted for lying to the FBI for his role in Russiagate.
Marc Elias emerges across the U.S. in activity attempting to change election laws, working on lawsuits focused on redistricting, attempting to block the disclosure of public information related to elections etc. Elias is also defending CO Secretary of State Griswold in Judicial Watch v. Griswold, an ongoing case in Colorado. To recap so far, Young of Colorado Newsline is funded by Griswold’s attorney, Elias; who works for Soros, who backed Griswold in her first bid for Colorado Secretary of State.
Team Griswold essentially has a wholly owned propaganda outlet and a running dog “reporter” at their disposal. Handy, given Griswold is running for office and taken around 30 campaign donations from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the lobbyists for Dominion. Griswold is currently navigating a multi-dimensional legal hellscape of her own making; and showing obvious signs of sheer panic. Her wild actions against CO County Clerks based on rumors from fringe social media chats about the existence of more forensic backups. Griswold has got to be sweating the publishing of additional expert forensic reports that are proving Griswold’s claims that Colorado elections were the most secure in history are false. Griswold is visibly cracking under the pressure based on her tic-riddled press appearances on friendly corpo media. Is Griswold finally realizing that for all she’s done to toe the party line as the youngest sec state, she may be set up to be the patsy?
Smith fuels Griswold’s and Weiser’s nightmares
It’s well known that Smith, a retired Colonel with 25+ years service in the U.S. Air Force has emerged as one of Colorado’s leading experts in election integrity. In fact, he is known nationwide as an expert in election systems, processes, security, laws, and testing. Smith has earned the reputation as being a formidable opponent of election fraud and is relentless in his pursuit of truth when it comes to U.S. elections. So far, the substance of Smith’s work has yet to be debunked.
Smith has challenged Sec. State Griswold, her staff including Chris Beall, Trevor Timmons, and Judd Choate on their command of election law, ethics, ability to follow their own laws and emergency rules. Its rumored that for election officials fighting against free, fair, and transparent elections, Smith fuels their nightmares.
Smith’s open records requests (CORAs) have shined the light on numerous infractions originating from the Sec State’s office. Griswold, AG Phil Weiser, and DA(s) in Colorado as of this week have received affidavits and supporting evidence of Griswold’s crimes from Smith. By law affidavits submitted to the AG and DAs showing evidence of crimes MUST be investigated.
Smith states he has more affidavits and evidence. He plans to submit a bevy of these official notices to the proper authorities. Smith has taken measures to secure his information in the event there is any law enforcement retaliation action, attempting to seize Smith’s records caused by Young’s false reporting. Smith is on the record as a whistleblower, affording him whistleblower status. Now Griswold and the Elias/ Soros sponsored press have to deal with the fact that any attacks on Smith will likely raise legal issues of retaliation. In fact, Griswold has already made a false claim to law enforcement based on Newsline’s false reporting. Making a false claim to law enforcement is a crime in Colorado.
The key issue to be tracked is how AG Weiser will cope with his numerous conflicts of interest. Right now he’s defending Griswold in the Hanks et al vs. Griswold case. Weiser has also rubber stamped Griswold’s emergency rules designed to ensure only the state can audit the state elections. This particular rule is being challenged in the Hanks case. How is this going to work? Are Colorado citizens to believe that Weiser is going to honestly investigate his current client’s alleged crimes? How is it possible that Weiser can be involved in the defense of Griswold given Weiser has supported Griswold’s emergency rules that may be found illegal? It seems as if Weiser should be investigated for his role in Griswold’s legal dumpster fire via independent counsel. Even those who take issue with the topic of election integrity are questioning Weiser’s obvious conflicts of interest including funding Griswold’s SoS campaign and taking funding himself from Dominion lobbyists – same as Griswold.
Griswold loses it – goes HAM. Eats crow.
Adding to Griswold’s troubles, are the forensic backups that Tina Peters made of the Mesa County election systems to preserve election records in order to uphold her oath of office. It turns out that in legal filings in the Hanks et al vs. Griswold case plaintiffs (county clerks) made the same complete backups of their systems in order to comply with the law. Ironically, they also followed Griswold’s own instructions that she disseminated prior to the infamous Dominion “Trusted Build.”
Upon learning of the additional system backups, Griswold went absolutely HAM (means giving it all you got – as the kids say), demanding information from the plaintiffs in the Hanks case. In court submissions, the plaintiff’s lawyer presented the judge with a strong case showing Griswold went far beyond her authority by engaging in illegal pre-discovery. The lawyer also effectively called out Griswold’s attempt to use inapplicable laws to justify her actions. In the end, Griswold was forced to eat crow. She admitted after her reckless and lawless witch hunt, that there are no problems with the security of any election equipment. Curiously this story was not covered in the Colorado Newsline. Why?
It’s obvious
There’s no question that Griswold is panicked, backed into a corner, and lashing out in all directions to protect herself from the inevitable accountability she shoulders for all types of election infractions. We don’t know how all of the cases, evidence and affidavits are going to work their way through the system. We do know that Griswold, her handlers, and her media lapdogs are all-in on fighting against the truth coming out. They are employing all tactics and willing to hit below the belt, including using the owned media to lie about a vet, Col Shawn Smith USAF (ret) who is on Team Griswold’s radar. Need more proof? Griswold just moments ago posted this release announcing she’s suing another Colorado County Clerk who is following the law by backing up and preserving election records. Guess who is named in the press release… Col. Shawn Smith. Why? For speaking on the phone to the County Clerk Griswold is suing.
U.S. Election Integrity Plan 