DENVER —
Donald Trump has vowed to reshape the federal government into a powerful force loyal to him and to use that power against his enemies.
It’s a plan that could target specific Coloradans — and some of Trump’s allies in Colorado have a darker vision of retaliation in mind.
While Trump has disavowed political violence, he has repeatedly excited his crowds of supporters with a promise of “retribution” linked to his plans to remake the federal government.
“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023, adding, “I will totally obliterate the deep state.”
Trump has since said that his “retribution” will be his electoral victory and success in a second term.
A cornerstone of Trump’s re-election plan is what he describes as his “plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all.”
This goal is shared by Trump, his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and his allies at the ultra-conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, which has created a blueprint for a second Trump term, called Project 2025.
Trump says his effort to reshape the American government begins with his Schedule F plan, which involves reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil service employees as political appointees, allowing him to replace long-time government workers with his own hand-picked supporters.
On his campaign website, Trump promises to issue the order immediately and “wield that power very aggressively.”
This purge of career public servants for party loyalists has long been a top priority of Vance. In a 2021 interview, Vance said that would be the one piece of advice he’d give Trump for a second term.
“Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” Vance said in 2021.
There are about 38,000 civilian federal employees in Colorado and more than 2 million nationwide.
A project funded by the Heritage Foundation is now investigating civilian government employees, promising to publish a list of names of government workers who are hostile to Trump.
“What we’re doing is we’re educating the American people about who these people are so that if President Trump wins and he wants to implement the agenda the American people elected him for, he knows who is not going to be open to helping him implement that agenda,” said Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, in a June 2024 appearance on Fox Business.
Trump has recently disavowed knowledge of Project 2025, a sweeping 900-page blueprint for his second term created by Trump allies, advisors and former administration officials.
However, NBC News obtained a video of Trump speaking at an event, praising the Heritage Foundation in April 2022 for its work laying out a governing framework.
“Heritage does such an incredible job at that,” Trump says in the video. “They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”
The Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood and the Dr. James Dobson Family Insitute in Colorado Springs are listed as advisory board members for Project 2025. Dr. Sanjai Bhagat, a finance professor at the University of Colorado, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025.
The Colorado Christian University, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, Dr. Bhagat, the Heritage Foundation, the Colorado Republican Party, the head of the Trump campaign in Colorado and both Republican National Committee members from Colorado either declined to be interviewed or did not respond to requests for comment.
“We're in the process of a second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be," said Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts on the far-right news network Real America’s Voice in July.
Trump has used even darker, dehumanizing language to describe his political enemies.
“We will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie, cheat and steal to win elections,” Trump said in a 2023 Veterans Day speech that the Washington Post described as reminiscent of the language of dictators.
Colorado attorney Mario Nicolais, who represented the Coloradans who unsuccessfully sued to keep Trump off the ballot due to his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, said Trump is targeting people like him and his colleagues with that rhetoric.
“I think he’s talking about anyone who opposes him in any way whatsoever,” Nicolais said.
Nicolais is a former Republican who serves as general counsel for the Never Trump group The Lincoln Project.
He declined to name specific Coloradans he believes are at risk of retaliation if Trump is re-elected.
“I'm not going to name names, because our country has a really bad history of that,” Nicolais said. “I don't think that it's my right to put other people in danger.”
Those names are being collected by Trump supporters. Ivan Raiklin, a retired military officer, has been making the rounds on right-wing fringe media outlets with a list of 350 names.
Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story that Raiklin’s list is “a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans.”
At least four Coloradans appear on the list.
Raiklin says he wants so-called constitutional sheriffs to take the situation into their own hands.
“We provide them with the necessary evidence for them to go after them for treason,” Raiklin said during a recent appearance.
Conservative activists in Colorado have talked openly about executing their political opponents for treason for years.
“If you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang,” said Shawn Smith, co-founder of the U.S. Election Integrity Plan, at a 2022 town hall featuring elected officials and Republican candidates. Smith’s call for executions at The Rock church in Castle Rock was met with cheers.
Joe Oltmann, a conservative activist, podcaster and the owner of DCF Guns, has repeatedly called for the hangings of his political opponents, including President Joe Biden.
“He should be hung by the neck until he’s dead,” Oltmann said on a March 2024 podcast.
Oltmann has called for the mass executions of U.S. Senators, journalists and political leftists. Oltmann defends the idea as the proper punishment after a conviction for treason.
Despite Oltmann’s well-documented extremism, he remains a power player in the Colorado GOP. He declined after his name was placed in nomination for governor at the Republican State Assembly in 2022 and doled out his endorsement to Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who held a 2024 event at his gun shop.
Oltmann, who was the origin of the conspiracy theory that Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems conspired with Antifa to rig the 2020 presidential election, also frequently claims that journalists are in league with Antifa to rig elections.
Trump has called for criminal charges against government employees who “collude with the fake news,” and Trump confidant Kash Patel has said that a new Trump administration would target journalists.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel said during a 2023 appearance on Real America’s Voice.
“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig [the] presidential election,” Patel said. “We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Trump has called for a variety of criminal investigations and prosecutions of his perceived political opponents and others, including judges and prosecutors, nonprofits that assist migrants who are in the U.S. without legal documentation and elections workers Trump falsely accuses of election rigging.
John Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado during the Obama administration, says Trump is issuing “direct threats to retaliate for the sake of retaliating politically.”
“It would be a terrible thing to see that,” Walsh told 9NEWS in an interview this week.
Walsh noted published reports that Trump’s attempts to weaponize the Justice Department during his first term were thwarted by administration officials who refused to cooperate.
Walsh said Trump could try to grease the skids of political prosecutions of his enemies by removing career prosecutors who are not currently political appointees.
“I don't think this happens easily,” Walsh said. “I don't think it happens overnight. But I don't think it's impossible either.”
For Nicolais, the most chilling election promise Trump is making is his vow to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election for Biden. Several Coloradans are in prison for their role in the violent attack.
“I think it's incredibly dangerous,” Nicolais said.
The message Trump would send by pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists would be clear, Nicolais said.
“What it would say... is that violence against other Americans, as long as you're doing it in Trump's name, is okay.”