Lauren Boebert’s American Dream

Boebert likes to talk about her embrace of Republican values as the natural result of her hardscrabble upbringing. “I am a conservative because of real-life experiences,” she said in a Facebook Live video in 2020. “My mom was a true blue Democrat and she believed all of the lies that she was told—that she could not support me and my brothers on her own. She was told that if she went out to try to support us without the help of Democrat politicians, she would fail, and because of that, we grew up poor.”

But registration records show that Boebert’s mother—today an outspoken Trump supporter who once recorded a series of racist rants about “Mexicans” and “brown people”—was actually registered as a Republican in Colorado in 2001, when Boebert was 15. She changed to unaffiliated in 2013 and to Democrat in 2015. It’s unclear what her registration was before 2001. (Boebert’s mother did not respond to requests for comment.)

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Before Boebert stoked liberal rage on the national stage to forge a political career, she did it to sell hamburgers. Boebert claims that workers at Shooters began to open carry because a man was “physically beaten to death” in the alley outside her restaurant. A man did die on the sidewalk down the street from her restaurant, and police initially investigated his death as a homicide, but they ultimately determined his cause of death to be a drug overdose.

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Former Shooters employees tell me that, in the early years of Boebert’s fame, people visited the restaurant from across the country, and that the dining room was often packed with tourists on summer days. But they also say that the reality of working at Shooters was far removed from the lighthearted atmosphere shown on TV.

In fact, five former Shooters employees tell me that Boebert frequently failed to pay her employees on time. (Two of the former workers wished to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation; another did not want to be named and publicly associated with Boebert.) “The second the restaurant blew up, her head blew up, and it became something entirely different,” one former waitress says. “And I got to meet a new version of her that is a monster.”

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Multiple employees say that they were paid in cash, either out of the register or from Boebert’s husband’s wallet, without any taxes deducted. While many workers were struggling to make ends meet, they say Boebert spent exorbitant sums on breast implants, private schooling for her sons, and a new Cadillac Escalade. They describe her as alternately absent, showing up only when news crews were at the restaurant, or demanding. “If she would come into the restaurant,” one former employee tells me, “everyone just knew we were just gonna have a bad day, because she would just walk around and nitpick.”

Boebert insisted in her television appearances that gun safety was paramount, telling CNN, “There’s no accidents that are gonna happen…There’s no reason a waitress is ever allowed to unholster.” Most workers describe Boebert as consistently safe with guns. Still, one worker says safety was “not how it was perceived on TV.” Another claims that Boebert pointed a loaded gun at him when he said that he would have voted for Obama for a third term. “She would tell it like a joke,” he tells me. “She thought it was hilarious.”

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Workers say that once Trump became president, Boebert increasingly intertwined her political views with the restaurant. In 2019, Boebert attended a Beto O’Rourke presidential campaign event in Aurora, responding to the candidate’s proposal to take away assault rifles with, “Hell no, you’re not.” “When she went to confront Beto O’Rourke, that’s when she started selling T-shirts and stuff,” one waitress says, “and then so we lost a lot of our customers.” Boyington says that her focus turned to social media popularity. “She was running that business into the ground with all her speeches on Facebook Live,” he says.

Employees tell me they believed that Boebert’s husband, who works as a consultant in the oil and gas industry, was keeping the company afloat. “There were times when we were waiting for him to get his check, so that way she could get us our check,” one former employee says. According to Boyington, “He’s the one who paid the rent, all the bills, everything.”

“Shooters don’t make no money,” Boyington, who says he left the restaurant in 2017, tells me. “I left because I don’t even think we were topping $500 a day.” According to Boebert’s congressional disclosures, Shooters lost $143,000 in 2019 and $226,000 in 2020.

Reached for comment by phone, the congresswoman said “Who’s this?” When I told her I was a reporter for Mother Jones, she hung up.

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Lauren Boebert faces fraud probe after claiming she drove farther than Earth's circumference on campaign trail

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed...

www.rawstory.com

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.


The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation, reported the New York Times.

“Utilizing an illegal source of funds or ill-gotten funds to pay off a tax lien is illegal in Colorado and under federal law,” reads a complaint sent to the Colorado attorney general's office by the the American Muckrakers PAC. “That is the very definition of ill-gotten funds.”

The allegations against Boebert were first reported in February 2021, claiming that Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, but that figure worked out to 38,712 miles -- which is significantly further than the planet's 24,901-mile circumference.

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ZiprHead said:

Lauren Boebert faces fraud probe after claiming she drove farther than Earth's circumference on campaign trail

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed...

www.rawstory.com

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.


The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation, reported the New York Times.

“Utilizing an illegal source of funds or ill-gotten funds to pay off a tax lien is illegal in Colorado and under federal law,” reads a complaint sent to the Colorado attorney general's office by the the American Muckrakers PAC. “That is the very definition of ill-gotten funds.”

The allegations against Boebert were first reported in February 2021, claiming that Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, but that figure worked out to 38,712 miles -- which is significantly further than the planet's 24,901-mile circumference.

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Maybe she dreamed up her mileage statement.

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ZiprHead said:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.

The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation,

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Swammerdami said:

ZiprHead said:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.

The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation,

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Blacks are sometimes MURDERED by police for larcenies of $20 or less. What are the odds that Lauren `Dumbest Congresscritter' Boebert will even be placed in handcuffs for this thousand-times-bigger crime?

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ZiprHead said:

So, now the Muckrakers PAC and fireboebert.com have supposedly uncovered that Boebert was an unlicensed escort who met one of the Koch family through a sugar daddy site, who then introduced her to Tedd Cruz. And she also had 2 abortions when she was 18 and 23. (PDF)

She is threatening to sue. Discovery should be quite interesting.

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ZiprHead said:

So, now the Muckrakers PAC and fireboebert.com have supposedly uncovered that Boebert was an unlicensed escort who met one of the Koch family through a sugar daddy site, who then introduced her to Tedd Cruz. And she also had 2 abortions when she was 18 and 23. (PDF)

She is threatening to sue. Discovery should be quite interesting.

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ZiprHead said:

So, now the Muckrakers PAC and fireboebert.com have supposedly uncovered that Boebert was an unlicensed escort who met one of the Koch family through a sugar daddy site, who then introduced her to Tedd Cruz. And she also had 2 abortions when she was 18 and 23. (PDF)

She is threatening to sue. Discovery should be quite interesting.

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ZiprHead said:

So, now the Muckrakers PAC and fireboebert.com have supposedly uncovered that Boebert was an unlicensed escort who met one of the Koch family through a sugar daddy site, who then introduced her to Tedd Cruz. And she also had 2 abortions when she was 18 and 23. (PDF)

She is threatening to sue. Discovery should be quite interesting.

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February 2021, claiming that Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, but that figure worked out to 38,712 miles -

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Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., could lose her Hooters-inspired, gun-themed restaurant in a dispute with her new landlord.

The Colorado Republican told The Daily Beast she and her husband were surprised last week to receive notice from their landlord, a cannabis retailer, that their lease for Shooters would not be renewed after the building's ownership changed hands last month, and the lawmaker said they would have to find another location or close for good.

"She didn't explain exactly why her business was being kicked out," the website reported. "A person familiar with the arrangement said the property manager felt he had a 'moral' imperative to close the business, and had planned to lease the space to another restaurant."

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Cheerful Charlie said:

The sad part is, she will set up a Go Fund Me account to buy a new building for that restaurant, and will probably get a million dollars in a month.

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