(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) With optimism high among MAGA Republicans that a reckoning is nigh for corrupt coup conspirators and election-meddling officials, some turned their attention this week to George Soros-backed Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
Among other things, a damning audio recording emerged that showed Griswold deliberately covered up a leak of voting-machine codes that affected 34 or Colorado’s 64 counties.
The passwords were online, hidden in a secret spreadsheet tab, for four months before the Colorado GOP exposed the issue just a week before the 2024 election.
Colorado broke in favor of Kamala Harris by roughly 350,000 votes—an 11% margin. A measure to implement ranked-choice voting was narrowly defeated, while voters enshrined into the state constitution a measure to secure the “right” to an abortion.
The recording from last October showed Democrat county clerks confronting Deputy Secretary of State Chris Beall over the incident.
“I’m pissed off, and it’s really hard not answering media questions the way I actually want to,” said Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum.
Beall then replied, “…We were not going to tell counties because we could not tell counties without it becoming the media storm that it has become.”
Zygielbaum responded by calling the coverup “bulls**t.”
After the leak from her office went public, Griswold continued to downplay the incident and its potential impact on the election while offering the requisite lip-service that she had assumed responsibility for the scandal.
“I am regretful for this error,” Griswold said in a Nov. 4 statement, ostensibly assuming responsibility. “I am dedicated to making sure we address this matter fully and that mistakes of this nature never happen again.”
She claimed to have fired the unnamed individual responsible for the leak. Yet, despite a lawsuit by the Colorado Libertarian Party and an external investigation, no accountability has thus far affected her personally.
“Ultimately, a civil servant made a serious mistake and we’re actively working to address it,” Griswold said in an interview with Colorado Matters shrugging off the security breach. “Humans make mistakes.”
With little self awareness and emboldened by her own impunity, Griswold this week launched a partisan attack on President Donald Trump, calling him a “dictator” after he pledged an executive order on Monday to end the pernicious COVID-era process of mail-in voting.
“Mail ballots are secure,” Griswold told CNN. “Trump is obviously taking cues about democracy from a dictator like Putin.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold: "Mail ballots are secure. Trump is obviously taking cues about democracy from a dictator like Putin." pic.twitter.com/p0zxDjN5kj
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 19, 2025
Griswold foisted herself into the national spotlight when she helped to direct the lawfare effort to boot then-candidate Donald Trump from the Colorado ballot ahead of the 2024 GOP primary, citing the 14th Amendment’s so-called insurrection clause.
That effort ultimately was shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court after having been greenlit by the far-left Colorado Supreme Court.
Griswold also played a seminal role in the malicious prosecution of Tina Peters, a patriotic whistleblower in Mesa County who used her position as an election official in 2020 to expose suspicious irregularities and possible manipulation in machines serviced by Dominion Voting Systems.
I’ve met Tina Peters and she is an American Hero
Her son served in the military and lost his life
She is a Gold Star Mom
That’s more than enough sacrifice for any American family, but Tina kept going
She fought to expose systemic election fraud in Colorado and they put her in… pic.twitter.com/yY53H0JZ6u
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) August 23, 2025
For her efforts, Peters received a nine-year prison sentence from an unhinged, partisan judge whose own judgment had been called into question in prior performance evaluations.
The U.S. Justice Department has since sought to intervene in the matter, but since it is a state-level conviction, Peters would likely need to receive a pardon or commutation from Democrat Gov. Jared Polis.
Colorado’s next state-level elections will be in 2026, with the possibility that the term-limited Polis may try to trade places with Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet.
Bennet has declared his candidacy, as has Democrat state Attorney General Phil Weiser. Griswold, meanwhile, intends to run for Weiser’s seat as attorney general.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
