Wissel, Mitchell, and Linda Stanley
Controlling the narrative is a MAGA tactic. It serves to advance specious arguments that are inevitably repeated over and over by MAGA peeps, eventually becoming “truths” not based on fact but on how well they comport to MAGA dogma. It’s a tactic that shoves aside logic, ethics, and sometimes morality only to maintain and perpetuate the MAGA message. Repeated enough times, fiction arising from these narratives becomes history forever skewed by the originator’s intent–to fool all of the people all of the time.
Take, for instance, District 3 Commissioner/Commission Chair Dave Wissel at the February 18 BOCC work session, where he delivered a narrative about the disbarred, disgraced former 11th Judicial District DA Linda Stanley.
Wissel
We had put this on the agenda because we had… I had reached out to Commissioner Grantham in Fremont County, who I’ve known for a long time, about this pending lawsuit with Custer, Chafee, and Fremont respectively against our former 11th Judicial District Attorney…Linda Stanley. Had a brain moment there. And so we had gotten some raw data from them and I have not had a conversation with any other commissioners directly. I don’t know if the rest of you have had or not. I haven’t had the opportunity. What’s going on here is former DA Stanley was challenged on the validity of her law license. And apparently had not completed her continuing ed requirement to maintain that law license. Because of that, she was censured by the state court system. And in late December, I believe of 2024, her law license was removed by those procedures in the judicial branch. There was a movement then by the other counties to declare the position vacant. And have the governor make an appointment. Which he did. And it went to Mr. Jeff Lindsey, who was the only candidate that ran for that position in the November 24 general election. So with that those counties have cause to believe that District Attorney Stanley was using taxpayer dollars inappropriately, and I don’t know anything beyond that. I’ll just leave it there.
Amy Mitchell
Well, and and Aaron Smith, our attorney, said that she’s not had a chance to review any legal documents. So we… She can’t comment on the nature of the litigation and so we need to get her advice and figure out, you know, where we sit as a county. I looked at the spreadsheet.
Wissel
Doesn’t tell you anything.
Mitchell
It. It wasn’t self-explanatory.
Wissel
It wasn’t. Wasn’t.
Mitchell
So we’ll, we’ll wait to hear back from Aaron and then we can have further conversation.
Wissel
But I wanted to set the table that we have been asked to look at this and we had a constituent ask that of that last week. And so we put it on the agenda so that we could at least address it and we will do our due dilligence. And that starts with our County Attorney to see if there’s any there there. Just to be clear, in setting the table for this, we have not had the issues in Park County with the District Attorney in her tenure that other counties have experienced. I want to make that very clear. Our sheriff, we continually ask him and, and use his Council to see are we experiencing some of these same issues that our three other counties are and we have not? So we were reticent at that point in our opinion, because we didn’t know enough, in my opinion to go forward. So we’ll continue to discuss with our attorney.
Suffice it to say that Wissel excludes a massive chunk of the Linda Stanley saga. His purpose in controlling the narrative is clear: Linda Stanley pitches for Wissel’s side, and her ideological makeup mirrors his, District 1 Commissioner Amy Mitchell’s, and the newbie, District 2 Commissioner Gemmer’s.
Jordan Hedberg, editor and publisher of the Wet Mountain Tribune in Custer County, 120 miles to our south, provides the best comprehensive review of the Linda Stanley saga. He ties the story to the phenomenal growth of YouTube’s true crime podcasters.
Jordan Hedberg – Wet Mountain Tribune – Linda Stanley Saga
UPDATE (02/25/2025). Additional information and evidence regarding the Linda Stanley saga was provided in a comment to this post. The comment is provided below and also in the comments.
“Disgraceful – there is so much evidence of incompetent, arrogant malfeasance and they completely ignore the entire recent OARC investigation and ruling. Jordan /Wet Mountain has it right and there is so much more behind the veil. Shame on these clowns for their inactions. Here’s a glimpse -“
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xd0zmjt9vwgz5n3onjnqg/Linda-Stanley-Additional-Information.pdf?rlkey=aomsu8s35gt1v7oyw93g52hws&st=oznpgq8y&dl=
The pertinent question is why Park County Commissioners would be reluctant to join the other counties in the suit against Stanley to recover misused taxpayer monies. And why, despite Stanley’s documented litany of abuses as DA, did Wissel and Mitchell drag their feet, placing blame on others rather than where it obviously must be directed?
To be clear, the issue Wissel and Mitchell discussed on February 18, 2025, is whether Park County will join the other three counties within the 11th Judicial District in suing Linda Stanley for fraud and civil theft after she allegedly expended at least $111,971 of public tax money on legal fees incurred by her and other members of her staff to defend against her legal liabilities. (Click here to review the suit.)
Wissel’s statement that “there was a movement then by the other counties to declare the position vacant” rings somewhat hollow given that on October 29, 2024, he and Commissioners Elsner and Mitchell agreed to join the “other counties” in urging Governor Polis to appoint Jeff Lindsey to succeed Stanley because she had lost her law license.
If you’ve watched the above video, I hope you noted Commissioner Amy Mitchell’s objection to a portion of the letter from the other three counties to Governor Polis that reads, “…our communities are eager for a fresh start.” Mitchell says that statement is “mean,” then gaslights the Linda Stanley saga as a vendetta against Stanley by other counties and clunky state information sharing. She paints Stanley as having been an asset to Park County. Wissel echoes Mitchell, agreeing to sign the letter but wanting his objection on the record that he, too, doesn’t like the fresh start language.
I’ll ask you to note Wissel’s claim that he knows nothing more about the Linda Stanley case (“…and I don’t know anything beyond that…“) except that her law license was suspended for failing to keep up with continuing education. Yet later, he says: “Just to be clear, in setting the table for this, we have not had the issues in Park County with the District Attorney in her tenure that other counties have experienced. I want to make that very clear. Our sheriff, we continually ask him and, and use his Council to see are we experiencing some of these same issues that our three other counties are and we have not?“
So, we can ask if he doesn’t know any of the facts about the Linda Stanley case beyond the suspension of her law license for administrative reasons, how is it that he knew enough about the saga to inquire of Sheriff McGraw if he, the sheriff, was experiencing any of “these same issues” that other counties were experiencing?
Wissel again revealed more than he said he knew about the Stanley affair on December 10, 2024. Why the disingenuousness? Four days after Fremont, Chaffee, and Custer Counties filed suit against Stanley on December 6, 2024, the Park County Board of Commissioners again discussed the matter:
Wissel said he “continually” asks Sheriff McGraw if he’s experiencing the same issues other counties are having. (The word continually conjures up all kinds of images.) First, it’s a moot question because the issues other counties were having with Linda Stanley vanished when Jeff Lindsey replaced her in November 2024. Those issues involved not filing cases, discovery problems, and what Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper characterized as, “I see a lot of Ms. Stanley in people I’ve arrested and put behind bars. It’s the same thought process that it’s everybody’s fault but mine.”
Interestingly, Republican sheriffs in three counties, including Park County’s Tom McGraw, endorsed Stanley’s Democratic opponent, Kaitlin Turner, in August 2020, as reported by the Flume:
The Flume – August 27, 2020
Wissel and Mitchell must have been apoplectic about Republicans endorsing a Democrat. I’ve written about that here.
I would be remiss if I didn’t note that the 2023 revision of the Park County MAGA (formerly Republican) Central Committee (PCMCC) Bylaws requires members to toe the party line to the exclusion of all other considerations: party over county, party over country, party over ethics, party over conscience. It was Commissioner Amy Mitchell who chaired the PCMCC at that time when the loyalty requirement was tweaked.
Stanley was the God, Guns, and Guts candidate for DA in 2020. She won nearly 60% of the vote in Park County, mirroring the districtwide totals.
Appropriations from each county in the district fund Colorado Judicial Districts. This was Park County’s portion of funding for 2024:
As Commissioner Mitchell would say, “That’s not chump change!” Nearly half a million Park County taxpayer dollars went to the 11th Judicial District to fund the DA. That amount, give or take a few thousand, has gone to the judicial district for at least three years before 2024, with this year’s funding at $559,341.
Freemont County’s 2025 budget for the DA is $1,575,000; Chaffee County’s is $596,605; and Custer’s is $151,302.
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times from Wissel, Mitchell, and now from newly elected District 2 Commissioner Jason Gemmer: The NUMBER ONE RESPONSIBILITY of commissioners is the budget. Every penny must be accounted for in the best interests of the citizens of Park County. If some Yahoo is siphoning public funds from Park County for personal purposes, WOWIE ZOWIE BOY HOWDY, our commissioners will be on that like a dog on a bone. Right? They’ll be forever diligent in sniffing out these budget scofflaws with the temperament of a lean gray wolf on a fat bunny. Right?
On December 6, 2024, the Boards of County Commissioners for Freemont, Chaffee, and Custer counties filed suit in district court against Stanley for fraud and civil theft after she allegedly expended at least $111,971 on legal fees incurred by her and other members of her staff to defend against allegations of violations of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct and ethical violations. The suit asks for treble damages, or $335,914.05.
If the suit were to be won and the proceeds divided among the four counties using a simple percentage of how much each county contributes to the operation of the 11th Judicial District, Park County’s share would be about $21,000, or if treble damages are awarded, about $64,000.
Why would Wissel and Mitchell be reluctant to participate in the suit? Is Mitchell’s confusion about a spreadsheet the issue? Why do they need the county attorney to take them by the hand?
Here’s the suit filed by the Boards of County Commissioners of Fremont, Chaffee, and Custer counties in early December 2024. The filing has been available to the public for nearly three months. It is specific, sets out the facts and claims, and specifies the relief sought.
Wissel said he spoke with his long-time buddy, Kevin Grantham, about the Linda Stanley saga, from whom he got some “raw data.” We don’t know the content of that raw data (whatever that means), but we certainly do know who Kevin Grantham is. The former President of the State Senate (before Colorado became blue) articulated the bottom line in the suit against Stanely: “We owe it to the taxpayers of the four counties” to pursue justice.
The narrative Park County Commissioners have promulgated concerning the Linda Stanley saga is unsurprising. It seeks to minimize the saga in the best interests of a MAGA fellow traveler. The narrative places delaying roadblocks in the way of doing the right thing, of having the taxpayers of Park County’s best interests in mind. Do they seek to preserve Stanley’s image? Stanley is, after all, one of them. Does controlling the narrative serve the taxpayers of Park County?
Updates on the case from the Wet Mountain Tribune are here and here.
Former DAs (4th Judicial District) discuss the complaint against Linda Stanley’s alleged mishandling of her office:
Update from the Canyon City Daily Record
The story is here.
Disgraceful – there is so much evidence of incompetent, arrogant malfeasance and they completely ignore the entire recent OARC investigation and ruling. Jordan /Wet Mountain has it right and there is so much more behind the veil. Shame on these clowns for their inactions. Here’s a glimpse –
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xd0zmjt9vwgz5n3onjnqg/Linda-Stanley-Additional-Information.pdf?rlkey=aomsu8s35gt1v7oyw93g52hws&st=oznpgq8y&dl=0