Colorado Republicans have been ravaged into irrelevance by a defeated, deeply unpopular former president and his supplicants who blindly parrot every crackpot stolen-election conspiracy theory he spews.

Until recently, it seemed many Republican leaders had largely been on the sidelines rather than directly confronting these lies and conspiracies. But the tide is turning.

The Colorado Republican State Central Committee (CRC) soundly defeated the Soviet-inspired scheme by failed 2022 congressional candidate Dave Williams, the CRC chairman, to steal the votes of members in order to force through a bylaw that would have canceled the 2024 Republican primary. “Comrade Dave” wanted to empower a few thousand activists to select Republican nominees in a convention, thereby disenfranchising 940,000 Republicans and 1.7 million unaffiliated voters from voting in a Republican primary.

Following their defeat, the silence of Comrade Dave and his fellow vote-stealing conspirators was deafening. But they now have a new cause: defending the rioters who were arrested and are now being prosecuted for attacking the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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The newly elected secretary of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee (CRC) has forwarded a letter to the 400 members of the CRC alleging the rioters are being mistreated and abused by the federal government after being unfairly charged for alleged crimes committed that day. The secretary issued a “call to action” for members to sign the letter so it can be sent to Colorado’s Republican Congressional delegation.

The letter claims hundreds of Americans are being detained without bond and that defendants are “grossly mistreated and abused by our legal system” and they “suffered physical abuse and injury at the hands of their jailers and denied medical treatment.” The letter alleges the defendants were denied contact with their attorneys and due process. They claim multiple abuses of the Constitution.

Echoing the kind of extreme rhetoric used by Democratic Socialists to denigrate the United States of America, the letter concludes, “This is a despotic, tyrannical banana republic.”

Enter Colorado’s U.S. Rep. Ken Buck.

As a former assistant U.S. attorney who served as Weld County District Attorney from 2004 to 2014, Buck is a prosecutor who deals in facts, not the kind of fantasies and conspiracies that consume the leadership of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee.

Buck’s conservative credentials are deep. He won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010 with the support of the emerging Tea Party movement. As a congressman representing Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, he became a leader of the conservative House Freedom Congress and authored a book, “Draining the Swamp, How Washington Corruption Is Worse Than You Think.”

But make no mistake about it, Buck will now be derided as a RINO, Republican in name only, for daring to directly confront the Republican Conspiracy Caucus and their lies.

As a member of the CRC, Buck has released a detailed four-page response to the hysterical claims, inaccuracies and misrepresentations contained in the “banana republic” letter.

“There has been significant misinformation proliferated on the Internet about the status of the January 6 defendants and I assume these Internet rumors are the source for much of the incorrect information contained in the letter,” Buck wrote. “I hope this response will help clarify the situation and that you will cease disseminating false information.”

Buck goes on to eviscerate false claims about physical abuse and denial of contact with legal counsel. He dismantles the misinterpretations of the U.S. Constitution made by the Republican conspiracists. Of course, these are the same conspiracy activists who continue to believe former Vice President Mike Pence could have stopped the official counting of Electoral College votes in an attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. I’m sure these same activists will cheer on Vice President Kamala Harris if she tries to reverse the Electoral College vote in January 2025 when Biden loses.

“It is sad Republican leaders are misdirecting the energy and resources of Republican activists at a time when this country is facing crisis after crisis as a result of the failed policies of the Biden administration, the fentanyl poisoning of seventy thousand Americans every year, the increase in crime throughout American cities and the inflation eating away at American spending power.”

Buck had already demonstrated his courage when he voted to confirm the Electoral College vote that elected Joe Biden as president despite the attempt by rioters to disrupt the vote and reverse the election.

If Colorado Republicans are ever to be competitive again with a changing Colorado electorate, it is leadership like Buck’s that will begin that comeback.  This is Congressman Ken Buck’s finest hour.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong for nine years before managing campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.