Colorado to Probe Lauren Boebert For Fraud After She Reimbursed Herself For Driving Distance Greater Than Earth’s Circumference

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Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is facing a probe from Colorado’s attorney general’s office after a complaint was filed against her over alleged fraud related to her 2020 Congressional run.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the group that successfully targeted controversial Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) filed a complaint against Boebert alleging she “inflated the mileage she logged on the campaign trail in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in reimbursements from donors to pay off years of tax liens on her restaurant.”

The deputy Colorado attorney general for criminal justice, Janet Drake, has since confirmed to David B. Wheeler of the American Muckrakers PAC, that both her office and Colorado’s Department of Revenue and Department of Labor and Employment will “investigate the issue.”

Wheeler’s group announced in mid-May that Boebert would be their next target.

“We helped fire Madison Cawthorn. Now it’s Lauren Boebert’s turn,” the group announced after launching the website www.fireboebert.com.

“I think we’re gonna go after Lauren Boebert in Colorado in a similar way,” Wheeler told Insider at the time. “I think we’re gonna engage in that race pretty quickly.”

The group used a similar website to release damaging videos and testimonials regarding Cawthorn, who lost his GOP primary in May.

The Times notes that Wheeler’s allegations against Boebert are not new:

The allegations have bounced around liberal circles since The Denver Post first reported in February 2021 that Ms. Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, a figure that equated to 38,712 miles — well more than 24,901-mile circumference of the planet.

While Boebert’s district, Colorado 3, is one of the larger districts geographically in the country, comprising the entire western slope of the state, her mileage claim strains credibility – to put it mildly.

“Boebert would have had to drive 36,870 miles in just over seven months between April 1 and Nov. 11 to justify the second payment,” notes the Denver Post, adding that “Boebert’s reimbursements to herself in one year eclipse her predecessor’s reimbursements over 10 years.”

Boebert’s predecessor, Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO), reimbursed himself only “$9,797 from campaign coffers for all travel expenses — including airfare — during a decade representing the same district,” reported the Post.

The investigation takes on an additional level of potential criminality as Boebert is accused of using the reimbursed funds to pay off tax liens filed against her restaurant. The Times notes that the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment filed liens totaling $20,000 against Boebert “from August 2016 to February 2020 for failure to pay unemployment premiums on her business, Shooters Grill.”

“As you are both fully aware, utilizing an illegal source of funds or ill-gotten funds to pay off a tax lien is illegal in Colorado and under federal law. That is the very definition of ill-gotten funds,” reads the Muckrakers complaint to Colorado’s attorney general.

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