Leadership, Integrity, and Fallout: The Price of Exposing Corruption with Erik Holt

Welcome to another episode of The First Responder Playbook. In today’s show, host Brent sits down with Erik Holt, a former fire chief from Colorado whose story goes far beyond fighting fires. Erik takes us deep into a wild tale of small-town politics, election fraud, and personal sacrifice—sharing how he stood up against corruption and paid the price for doing the right thing. From building a struggling volunteer department into a thriving team, to uncovering blatant election irregularities right in his own fire station, Erik’s journey is equal parts inspiring and cautionary.

As he walks us through the twists and turns—from witnessing suspicious election day activities and handing over evidence to the DA, to being ousted from his job and fighting a legal battle that’s now landed in the federal appeals court—Erik’s unwavering commitment to public service and the Constitution shines through. This episode isn’t just about fire service leadership; it’s about the moral courage it takes to stand up for what’s right, even when the consequences threaten everything you’ve worked for.

If you’ve ever wondered how corruption can infiltrate even the smallest communities, or how one person’s determination can rally a movement for change, Erik Holt’s story is one you won’t want to miss. So settle in as we dive into this powerful conversation at the crossroads of leadership, integrity, and the fight for justice.

 

#electionfraud #bankfraud #firstresponder #fire #fireservice

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Guys, welcome to the first responder playbook. I'm excited to
have Eric Holt with me tonight. Eric's former fire chief from
Colorado that has an awesome story of
corruption and, you know, the fight
that we all want to have, that fight to get rid of corruption.
Unfortunately, he's having to do it out of his own pocket right now, and

(00:22):
I want to help him bring a platform to help bring justice back to him
and his battle. So, Eric, the floor is yours.
I'll let you give yourself a proper introduction. Right on. Well, I appreciate
it. My name is Eric Holt. As Brent mentioned,
I former fire chief now I run emergency services at
the county level. But first, foremost, you know, I'm a

(00:46):
father and a patriot and a citizen of this country,
first responder and U.S. army veteran. So,
you know, the. The situation that we'll get into and the
story I'll tell is something I never thought I'd experience, never thought
I'd be in the middle of, but here I am, and I'm here to share
the story. I think not only myself,

(01:09):
never expected this, but I'm sure no first responder out there would ever
even suspect they'd be in some crazy story, some
crazy situation, and, you know, have to be
battle with the. The moral battle on what to do. So
if I can be an example, I'm here to share that story and, and hope
that others will take that stand. You know what I'm saying? Yeah,

(01:31):
absolutely. So tell my listeners, like,
a little bit about your background and how you got into the fire service originally.
Okay, awesome. So lived in a small town growing up,
and I was fortunate enough when I was like 15, 16
years old, I was working at a butcher shop in the local grocery store, and
the volunteer fire chief came in. He's like, hey, you ever thought about

(01:53):
firefighting? I'm like, I'm a punk teenage kid, you
know, doing what I could to get by every day. And he said, why don't
you. Why don't you come by? And I went.
And I mean, that day changed my life. I've been in love with the fire
service ever since. So coming from a small town, you know, I
didn't know what the path was. So we were a nation at War in

(02:16):
2003. So I joined up in the US army, and I was
lucky enough to get what is a very small MOS or job
specific in. In the army, which was firefighter. So I got to go to
Texas, do my. My fire academy there, got Certified and did
5 years active duty year in Iraq, and then When I got out,
I was stationed at Fort Hood Fire, and so the chief there

(02:38):
saw some potential in me and. And hired me right into the same
slot. I was in the military as a civilian and
really launched my professional career. Did 18 years
in Department of Defense at Fort Hood and Fort Carson Fire
Department as a civilian. And then in 2022, I took
a fire chief's job at a special district in Colorado

(03:01):
up in the mountains by Pikes Peak. So,
you know, just followed the journey. Man, it's been fun. That's
awesome. My. My father actually was a firefighter in the Navy.
He eventually came to the bright side and became a police officer. But,
you know, deep down inside, he. His original love was firefighting
and, you know. Well,

(03:24):
you know, hey, it. The only thing that separates us is test scores, right? Yeah,
absolutely. And that's what tells somebody all the time is, you know, we may give
each other hard time, but only we can do that. Absolutely, man. It's a.
It's a rite of passage for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
So tell me about it. You got on as a chief in
Colorado. How did that.

(03:45):
How did you pick Colorado and then how did you end up with that agency?
Yeah, so, I mean, fate has it, I guess, but I.
I always wanted, like, when I was in the army, I wanted to be stationed
at Carson. You know, you. You get like a dream list of your duty stations
and. And mountains of Colorado was always my number one. So I had an
opportunity to transfer there as a civilian, and I did.

(04:07):
I moved into the community that became the chief during
COVID So I didn't really get to know anybody,
but I did meet some of the. The fire department out
on calls or doing this and that, and
they were in the midst of chaos before the chaos. But

(04:28):
the chief prior to me had gotten into some trouble, and
they brought me in as an interim initially just because they knew me and I
was on the, like, the type 3 incident management team within the county.
So they asked me to be an interim, and I called my fire chief and
said, hey, like, can I go on leave and. And, you know, help out? He's
like, absolutely. I'll be, you know, do your thing. And so I burned

(04:50):
all my leave. It was supposed to be two weeks, but it kept rolling and
rolling and rolling over. So all of a sudden it was like five months. And
I kind of took a bet on myself because the. That chief had. Had left
under not good terms, you know what I'm saying? But the position for full
time was open, and I
battled with it, man. I had a great life at Carson. I had. I was

(05:13):
on a great crew. You know, shout out to the boys there. I mean,
I loved it. But I had gotten full custody of my
daughters, and they're both teenagers at the time, so I got two of them. And
so the. The thought of being local and at home every night
and, you know, responding from home, worked, family life. And
so my leave was out and I had to make a decision. So I

(05:35):
quit with no job offer after 18 years,
applied, and I, you know, it paid off. I was
selected as the permanent fire chief. And.
It was a. It was a small town, kind of
ramshackled. Like, had been ran into the ground department.

(05:56):
We had like four or five responders when I took over. And
from the point I got hired until the end of my tenure, we had built
up to 62 people, you know, the most trained and qualified
certified guys. We had guys and gals. We had 12 EMTs
active, which for a small town is
quite a bit, you know. Anybody? Absolutely. Yeah. Listening from. From

(06:19):
Small Town America. Any department that has 60 members, whether you're a professional or
volunteer department, is a lot.
And, you know, our response times and all of our metrics were the best they'd
ever been. So I was real proud of what we had built. And then
things changed rapidly. A little foreshadowing.
So let me ask you this. I know you

(06:41):
said, like, all five seats got up for election at one time,
so there was a whole new, you know, council
committee that came in. Yeah. Was there any, like,
signs of this beforehand? Like, how did all five come up at
once? And, like, what changed? Yeah, so
what? I. I guess the route that had happened is when I got the

(07:04):
call, there had been three board members resigned.
They'd gotten into some situation with the chief, and the chief sort of, I
guess, gave them the ultimatum of, like, you know, if you don't do what I
want and hire these people and give me this contract, and I'm taking
everybody with me. And so they kind of, like, reacted and resigned, but what that
did is vacate their seats. So when I got the call, there

(07:26):
was one board member still left. And
he called and he asked me to kind of come in and situate things and
kind of help him determine what was going on.
And then it turned out about a month into that, that
his voter registration was registered to a different state because he owned two
residences, and he was, like, transitioning. So it turned out he

(07:49):
wasn't able to hold that seat.
And so, poof, all of a sudden, there Was no board members.
And Colorado is a little different. So the
fire marshal or the one with the authority for like, the legal stuff
is the county sheriff. So talking with him,
he said in that state law, every. Every fire

(08:11):
marshal for every county in Colorado is the. Is the sheriff. So,
you know, I had his support to like, stay in place so that the fire
department could operate still. And it actually went to this special
process that I don't know that it's done often or had ever,
but the county commissioners had to
appoint a new board. And so they went through like this interview process

(08:34):
for probably a month or so, and they selected
three from the community to establish a quorum of the board,
and then those three would appoint the. And fill
out the rest of it, giving them legal authority. So it was kind of this
crazy even beginning, but I was
blessed with some really good board members that were. Had no

(08:56):
part of anything. Like, you know, they, they, they
didn't come from one allegiance or, or anybody else. That kind of
happens in small towns, you know what I'm saying? And so
they literally said, what do we need to do? You're, you know, you're the guy,
you're the one that has a career in this. We're just regular citizens.
No firefighting experience. And we got to work and we just

(09:18):
built something that was pretty, pretty damn amazing.
So how long the time frame once they appointed these,
you know, interim board members,
how long is this time frame once they establish that quorum again?
Until the special election to fill all five seats?

(09:39):
I think it was about nine months. And then. So it actually wasn't a special
election. It was just a normal cycle. Okay.
Okay. But they, you know,
there was. It really became like these HOA battles of like, who
wanted to control, you know, and who had the best ideas. It got really
weird, but I thought, you know, and being

(10:01):
impartial, because I just had a job to do that the, the board had
supported enough and we had grown so dramatically
that they were in pretty, pretty good shape. So I thought.
And like, right before the election, I. I had this crazy idea when I first
started and I pitched it to him of like, let's do this thing called a
family fire muster where we have kids competitions and we have

(10:25):
a barbecue, you know, we have a live band. So it was like, I
pitched it as this, like, Small Town America 4th of July gathering,
but it was also a fundraiser for the department and we
smashed all records. We had hundreds of people out there. We raised like 27
grand in one day. And we had a
major Fire like two weeks before the elections and

(10:47):
so everything lined up. Like we kicked butt on that fire.
Like all of our crews were out there. We had
a female crew that got sponsored by women in fire. Not sponsored, but like
highlighted by them. That went national, went viral.
And so like I, I wasn't really concerned about the election.
I mean one, I'm, I'm not an elected official. I'm

(11:09):
a fire chief at this time and
I assume that everybody's running for it, had the best interest
of the community and the department when, when they sign
up to, to run for election. So maybe I was a little naive to that.
But yeah, that's, it was like nine months and

(11:30):
then boom, we're in the midst of this election.
So you gotta
forgive my ignorance a little bit. But like in Oklahoma a lot of times, especially
for smaller fire agencies, their boards are there. There
may be a couple thousand people voting in these elections. Like

(11:50):
what, how many people are probably voting in this election, like in the fire
district. So the, the
we, the department I was at hadn't had like any
electors come forward. So it was kind of like auto elected
basically for years, but in the surrounding area. So our district
was 55 to 6, 500 people and 66 square miles.

(12:13):
So you know, a good election at the local levels,
10%. So we kind of figured that. But in the, the neighboring
districts, they would get 100 to 150 people
for any single candidate. You know what I'm saying? And that was a good
turnout. I mean in small town America people aren't
super concerned about their fireboards. You know what I mean?

(12:35):
Absolutely. You're not wrong there. It's a low
turnout election. So what, what changed where all of a
sudden they're getting, you know, candidates. Like was there a
big event that like, you know, everybody's like, oh, now we're signing up.
Like what changed? So you had some, some loud
people. From one, there was two kind of HOAs and they

(12:57):
kind of aligned, which is kind of just a
weird scenario. Right. But it, it's a bunch of people that
just thought they had the best ideas and, and they had their agenda
and they were very loud and very vicious and very nasty. And
so they,
they had originally like a lot of them had applied when the county commissioners

(13:20):
had, had done this interview process and, and selected
and so maybe they were rubbed a little wrong. They weren't picked. You know,
there was some that were mad that their friend the old chief was gone. There
was some that wanted to do some weird
like fire mitigation. Burns that we weren't allowing.
So there's, you know, everybody had their own interest. I guess.

(13:45):
That'S just crazy.
So jump into the events
that happened. So election happens.
There's definitely some irregularities. Tell us about that.
Yeah, so because it was in a contentious election,
the. The board that was seated voted. And this

(14:08):
is going to come up later as we talk. But so Colorado statutes and
the law says that election is a governance of
the board of directors. And so they
hire a law firm to
use one of their, their people to be the designated election official, and
then another person they hired as the deputy election official. So they

(14:30):
run it. I had fight pretty
hard to, like, not get pulled in by like, the opposing side.
And so the decision was made, like, I'll
unlock the building. I'll work from a remote location, not at the
fire station, and, you know,
just do what I do, respond to calls. And so

(14:54):
sadly enough, we got a cardiac call and I had to go to the
station, set up the medevac and the
gentleman doesn't make it. So now you're kind of there in the ambulance with
a body, basically. Right. And. And the medevac had landed.
So I'm there. I'm physically at the place, and people are coming in

(15:14):
and out of the station after we, like, we shut it down for the medevac,
of course, and then kind of open traffic back up. So just for
clarity, like, the whole election is taking place at the fire department.
Yeah, yeah, at the main station. So. So it's not like
different polling places across the county. It's all happening at the fire
station. Right? Yeah, because it's a special district. So like all special district

(15:37):
elections were going on, but ours was located at the fire, the main
fire station. Okay. Okay. So while I'm there,
the, the non
incumbents, the ones that aren't seated, that are in the election are like,
really kind of disrespectful. And like when I was

(15:58):
landing the helicopters, like, hey, you guys gotta go inside or get in your vehicles
or whatever, and they kind of like thumb their nose to me and came and
sat on a tailgate. So it was kind of really weird and it was disrespectful.
Especially the gravity of what the, the call was. You know, there's like an
accuracy going on. But
so I, you know, it takes an hour

(16:19):
or so to like, work the guy. You know, we go through
anybody that's first responder, knows the kind of, the order of things, and
you know, we, we call it. Right. And so
I have to leave with the medic in their lieutenant and
go notify the family. Like, okay, we had taken the guy from his house,
he was awake, coded in route, so

(16:42):
his family wasn't aware that he had passed. So we go over there, we do
the very hard job. Anybody that's been in that situation, but that's my role. I'm
the fire chief of the district, right? So we go, we, you know, handle that
situation. And I come back to get my command vehicle
and I get stopped by a citizen that's like, hey,
there's something wonky going on here. And what they were reporting to me

(17:03):
was, if you ever been to an election location, there's usually a
perimeter around it or it's a no electioneering zone, right?
And they show me a picture and it's a poll watcher that's on their phone
within that thing. And they go, they're doing something weird. Like
I heard this lady come out and say, like, oh, did you already pay
them? And getting a vehicle description. I'm like, that sounds,

(17:26):
that sounds weird, you know, but it's not my job. So I
tell, I, I take them into the designated election official and
I'm like, hey, you know, tell them what you need. This is their
administration to run this election. And I leave.
And then there was
like two other calls for the day where I had to like stop in and

(17:47):
get med supplies or whatever. But the
election is declared that night, that same night, like,
I don't know, 8 o' clock at night or something. And
they post on the station is how it's officially.
And then the do will post on the website. So that's the official,

(18:07):
like legal way. Well, these folks were posting it before it was
declared. And so it was very weird that they had
totals, but it was kind of like whatever
because they were at the station and their poll watchers, so, you know,
whatever. Is it against the law to post election results before.
Yes, absolutely. But it happens.

(18:30):
And then the numbers were like,
wait, what? You know, and so there was a little bit of shock
for sure. And I had to meet the D.O. after everybody had
left and locked the building. And she kind of like in passing, you know, she
was like, what a crazy day. This is absolutely insane.
And so I, you know, I go back and I'm not really affected by

(18:53):
it. Like during my tenure
I've had two separate boards that I've worked for, worked great for
both. And now I'm, you know, an election's over, I'm going to work
for a new board in a month. When the transition happens, so
I'm not really affected. I don't really, that doesn't bother me at all.
And then I'm in town like the next day and somebody

(19:16):
like comes up to me and says, hey, like,
you know, these people were like filming me and I'm like, what?
Who? Like the poll watchers. And I'm like,
oh man, you know, I don't like this at all. So I
call the attorney that represents our district and kind of
pass that on. And this is the same law firm that hired the do.

(19:38):
So they also represent the liability of the district, the entity
of, of the department. Right. So I
talked to the attorney and she's like, this is really concerning, you know, like,
I gotta kind of figure out what to do here,
you know, kind of just do your job, Eric. You know, like, I'm like, cool,
got it. And so

(20:02):
a couple more conversations happen and like there's something that's
there. And so in my, I've got two pages
where I'm making like long form videos right now and showing all the evidence of
everything. And so in, in one of those videos, it kind of talks about like
I was faced with a moral dilemma all of a sudden. Like, let's be clear,
my best interest is to just shut the F up and not

(20:24):
get involved because it's against the people that have
been declared as the winners of the election. Who's going to be my bosses, the,
the board of directors. But
man, I'm like, it's a gut burn for like two, three days while I'm
hearing things and you know, I'm talking to the attorney
and I go, you know, I'm just laying in bed when I go, like,

(20:47):
I'm a single dad with two daughters. Like, what do you do, man?
But I, I took an oath as a citizen of this country when
I joined the military and taking no sense. And I,
I was raised to believe in the Constitution and our democracy and you protect
us, right? Like, I didn't join the military and go to war in Iraq
for nothing. So that, that's the internal dilemma going

(21:10):
on during these few days. And so one day after work,
I go to Walmart, buy a thumb drive, and I go to
this third party vendor that operated the security system for the fire station.
And I say, hey, like here's thumb drive. How
much is it? But I need this day's footage on these cameras
during these times. And you know, they're like, okay, cool, this is how much it'll

(21:32):
be and we'll get it in a day. Or so. And I'm like, all right,
cool. Appreciate it. So I get it. The next day, I think they call me,
like, hey, you can come pick it up. So I pay them. And
in that video I mentioned, I'm talking about it.
I remember, like, cooking dinner for the girls, like, putting them to bed,

(21:52):
you know, like, any other thing that I could have, I needed to do
in life took precedence because I was kind of like, I don't even know what
I'm looking for, you know? Right. And so girls go to
bed, and I. I decided
I would start with reading the. The election statutes for. And
the rules regarding them for the state of Colorado. So I do that. I read

(22:15):
them, I print them out, and I sit down, and there's like, 40
hours of footage, and I don't know what I'm looking for, but I
just start watching. And it takes quite a
while, man, but I start to see things.
And then I would have to switch to another camera and try to follow the
timeline and see where these people were moving and what they were doing.

(22:37):
But eventually the whole picture comes into play, and I could literally go
down the list and go, they're violating this law. They're violating this
rule. Blah, blah, blah. So it's like 1501
dash. Oh, wait. Or something. Is the. Is the election law for
Colorado special districts? And
as I start putting pieces together, like, it's. I'm like, oh, my God. This

(23:00):
is. This is election fraud. Holy cow. And,
you know, without being able to show your viewers, basically what
happened is inside the fire station,
the. The main camera that I was able to watch overlooks the
pole watcher table. And then in front of them
is the station main hall and. And the voting

(23:23):
booths. So when somebody walked in, like, the. The
shield, I guess, you know, the barrier thing that they put up, you couldn't see
what they were doing. Like, that's the front view, but I could see what the
pole watchers were doing. And then the other camera was
in front of the station, pointed right into the parking lot, which was that entire
perimeter. So

(23:44):
my first thing I clued in on was the poll
watchers have something in their hand that they're doing in action.
And. And then I kind of put that to. They're confirming something, and then they're
doing an action. And then, you know,
poll watcher rules is like, no electronic devices, no
computers, laptops, phones. You know, they're. They're supposed to sit here,

(24:07):
be quiet, observe. That's it. But these poll watchers
are getting up, interacting with voters Going outside
and kind of rotating. Like they're doing that and they're on their phone, they're
texting. So the scheme that I, I
watched basically over all this footage was what the
thing that they had in their hand was track counters. So you ever seen one

(24:30):
of those things where you click it and it counts? Yes. So there,
there's like four of the six pole watchers have those.
And then at one point early in the day, like, this lady
opens a laptop and she's filming
the room, which is a huge violation of election
law. Right. And then they're, they're on their phones. And so

(24:53):
what was happening is they would get up, somebody was off site
incentivizing voters to come in. They would get the
description of what it was, what vehicle, what the people look like.
They would, one of them would walk out, confirm that was the
person they were looking for, give them the names to vote for.
They would go in, register, go to the ballot. When they confirmed it,

(25:15):
they would click, then they would leave.
And so throughout the day, they're keeping tabs on
how many people they need to incentivize to come in and vote for the specific
names. And then the sort
of biggest part was right under that front camera,

(25:36):
late in the day, they have a conversation.
One of the candidates and three of the poll watchers meet under that camera. And
I guess they didn't know. I don't know. They
couldn't have picked a better spot. Right. But they detailed what the
numbers were, what the counts looked like.
And the lady says, you know, as long as we stay

(25:58):
under 800 total voters, we've got it. It's done deal.
And then so just for Claire
clarification, this camera picks up audio and
video. The outside one does. Yeah, yeah. And so
you, you can hear and see everything they're talking about at this point.
Yeah. When they stood on the camera, it was crystal clear. There was other

(26:20):
spots where, like, throughout the day, somebody, one of the poll
watchers will go out and meet them. And you could hear them telling names. But
it was, it was super clear when, when all the pieces came together. Like,
I remember, like that light bulb moment where I was like, oh, my God, like,
this isn't happenstance. This isn't a couple violations. This is a
coordinated effort with these candidates and their

(26:42):
poll watchers. And somebody's off site. Yeah. It's
fraud 100. And so once I view that, I reach out
to the attorney, I say, hey, like,
it's confirmed, you know what I'm saying? And
she's Like, I. You know, I. I'm. I got to talk to my partners. We

(27:03):
got to figure out how to go about this. This isn't a normal.
And so she. What happens? And
I don't know this at the time, but she's also talking to the incumbent president,
but she makes the decision as an
attorney to. To file a case with the district attorney's office
and then recuse herself as

(27:27):
representation of the district because her employee ran the election as
the DO and she. So now she's got a conflict. You know what I'm
saying? And so she calls me. We
have a conversation about that. You know, I'm like, I understand. You know, she's like,
you need to be careful. Like, I don't know
what comes of this. I. Like, I've never experienced this, but you got to be

(27:48):
careful. And I. I guess
the warrior in me was like, oh, yeah, let's go. Right? So I immediately called
the D. A. And I'm like, hey, I got something for you, and I need
you to come meet me. And I don't
know if you ever talked to a DA's office, but you don't get the person
you're after. So I like, oh, yeah, for sure.
And. And in my naiveness, I was like, can I talk to the district attorney?

(28:11):
And they're like, no, what are you calling for?
And this is a big city. Colorado Springs is a huge city. So you. Right.
A couple hundred thousand people. So I. I eventually get a return
call from a DA investigator, and he's
like, hey, man, you know, I want to come meet with you and see what
you have to show me. You know, when can we do that? I'm

(28:33):
like, first thing in the morning. Tomorrow, like, meet me
before I go to work, basically. And so I meet him, and
I take my laptop, I take that thumb drive, and I basically open the computer
and I start playing it for him. And I start. You know,
it's 40 hours, so I'm not gonna sit with this guy for 40 hours. I
don't even know him, but. Right. I. I pick out some. Some

(28:57):
important spots. And his. Like, you. You
come from law enforcement, your dad and everything. Law enforcement people are fun and
friendly until there's work to be done. And then, like, that
tone change, right? So we were friendly and sitting there, and then, like,
when I started showing him, he. His body posture changed.
He was. He's. You know, he. He wasn't talking as much.

(29:20):
Yeah, he just wasn't. And he was like, man, there's some. This is bad like,
holy cow. And he's. He like. He's like, can I have this slum driver? I'm
like, it's yours, man. That's evidence. And he leaves. And he, like.
I was like, all right, cool. Like, wow, what a crazy
scenario to be in. But, like, we're good.
He wasn't the investigator. He. He did preface that, though. He said, my.

(29:43):
My buddy that does election stuff is on vacation,
but I'm gonna meet with you. I'm going to gather this. And so now I
have those records, right? I have, like, the.
The reports that they do. They're law enforcement officers. So the
report from that day was like, you know, I met with Chief Holt

(30:03):
and. And reviewed, and it is very clear to me that
election crimes took place, I think, is what he says. And
so my incumbent board
president, the one that I was still working for, files an injunction with
the court and says, like, there's a criminal investigation launched. Like,
we can't transition this right now. And so she files that.

(30:28):
What happens is anybody familiar with, you know,
local districts, like, you have to post public agendas
and everything's transparency. Like, there's transparency laws.
So the board meeting transition
was supposed to be May 24, 2023. The elections
was May 2. So 22 days there, whatever.

(30:51):
On, like, the 22nd, she posted a public agenda that said, due to
a criminal investigation, we are
postponing the meeting until, I think it was June
10th. And the reason it was June 10th is because the law
states that transition will happen at the next regular meeting or
30 days after the election is certified.

(31:13):
And so June 10th was going to be the 30 day mark
after the certification allowing for this
criminal investigation and the court injunction and all that.
And the second that happened, man, they knew,
right? They all knew. And so harassment of
me, my firemen and women,

(31:36):
the board, like, the harassment went to
Mach 10, man. Like, it was. It was. It got very chaotic. Like people
were being threatened, you know, and
I have a responsibility and leadership to all of these folks. So they're like, you
know, should we be traveling to the grocery store and packs? You know,
I'm like, I mean, if it's at that level, like, yeah, it can't. You

(31:59):
know, what do you. I can't. I
can't even process that, man. We're firemen here. So
these folks go ballistic. And they. They basically
said, no, we are seizing power on May 24th.
And so I wrote a memorandum, and it's something that I show in my

(32:19):
videos, but I. The attorney hasn't resigned yet.
And I write her, I said, I need legal guidance. Who is the board of
directors and who is the bosses? Because I fear
not knowing is going to have an effect on the operations of the district.
And that's a little foreshadowing for what's to come.

(32:41):
So on May 24, I'm there with one of my captains at the station,
and I'm leaving. And these incumbent two,
two of them, Paul Del Toro, who would become the board president,
and Judy Dunn, who'd become the vice president, pull up and they're like,
you better open the station or else. You know, And I'm like,
listen, you know, I'm saying I'm not doing anything

(33:04):
until the attorney advises me
on who's in charge and. And protects the liability of the
district and our firemen and the civic process
here and everything. And so that the memorandum goes out,
she calls me and she says, I don't have a way legally to, like,
get in the way of its board transition. So, like, between the two

(33:28):
sides, they've got to come to a thing. And the second
that they take over, like, I submitted this
stuff to. For a criminal investigation, like, I can't. I can no longer be.
And so literally,
she just, like, eric, do. Do what's best for your people and,
you know, like, let the board figure it out. And so

(33:52):
I talked to the current board, the ones
outgoing, and I say, look, like, I can't get involved with it. I can't have
our firemen there. So whatever happens, I won't be present for
this meeting, and neither will any of my. My folks.
And so I think it's kind of a

(34:12):
gracious move that the outgoing board just sort of got out of the way and
said, okay, like, the courts and the criminal investigation will decide this. We're not going
to continue disrupting a fire department in the community.
And then so now, like,
May 25, and they're like, we're in charge. I'm like, oh,

(34:32):
okay. Like, I saw their job to do.
They hold another meeting May 25, and they call that the regular monthly
meeting, and I don't attend that. And the reason I didn't attend that
was my daughter had a concert at school, and I had already, like, placed
that on. On the calendar. And so they were pissed at me that I didn't
go, but, you know, family first kind of thing.

(34:55):
And so these. It's like live streamed and stuff. So, like, people
are messaging me, like, they're making a lot of decisions here. Like, are you
aware of this stuff? And I'm Like, I have no idea. So then,
May 26, all right? I get a call from Paul Del Toro. He's now
the board president. He says, I froze the bank accounts. And I'm like,
you did what? I went to the bank. I froze the bank

(35:18):
accounts. I'm like, you're not a signatory on the bank. How can you freeze the
bank accounts? And if you go to my justice for Hope Facebook
page, the record or Tick Tock, both of them are under the name justice for
Holt. There is a. A recorded phone call that I did because I started
like, okay, this. This is wonky. I don't feel good in this
situation. So I started documenting everything. And he. It's a phone

(35:41):
call where he's like, yeah, froze the account. And, like, I'll authorize
any expenditures. And I'm like, okay, Are bills gonna get
paid? He's like, oh, yeah. You know, just let me know.
Whatever, man. Okay. So it's kind of an important
detail, but, like, we head into Memorial Day weekend. This is, like,
Friday, and so I say, in the.

(36:04):
Kind of a big holiday for the fire service. Yeah. And we're in the mountains
of Colorado, so it's like, the official start of summer up there. Right.
So I leave into the weekend with
he. He's like, ah, I'm gonna be gone for four days. The
bank accounts are frozen. You know, let me know if you need anything. I'm like,
okay. All right. We already had, like, a major fire three

(36:27):
weeks before that. So, you know, that's the back
of my head. I'm a little worried. Like, if we got a major incident, how
do I. How do I keep going? But we get to the
weekend, and I had had him come in
May 29th or May 30th. I'm sorry. So 29th was.
The next day was Tuesday. So he meets me at the fire station.

(36:49):
We have to renew our insurance for liability, workman's comp,
all that stuff. And he signs the paper. He says, hey, email
me this invoice, and I'll pay when I get home. Like, cool.
So that was sort of the end of it. But he also, as he
was leaving, asked where my executive assistant was. And
I had my training captain there. And he goes, where's she at?

(37:12):
I'm like, a doctor's appointment. And he loses it.
Like, not, like, ballistic, but, like, I can't believe
that her performance, like, we're gonna have a.
She's gonna be gone. And I'm like, hard. Stop, bro. You can't. You can't
do that. Like, this is a medical thing. And like, I
am her supervisor. I approved this. Like, you can't do that.

(37:34):
And he gets very upset about that, storms out. And so I literally looked at
my train cabin, like, write a statement of what just happened, because
surely, like, we're not going to start violating equal
opportunity and, and all that, right? And
so she comes in after the appointment, and then I set her down. I go,
hey, this is what just happened. She's like, I'm. I'm done. I can't deal with

(37:56):
this. Like, I resign. And I'm like, oh, no. Right.
So she does. And when you gotta think
somebody with that amount of responsibility, that's a big loss to an
agency like yours. Oh, huge. Yeah. I mean, she was the
central billing point. What I didn't
know at the time, and I know now is that he was

(38:18):
supposed to meet with. She was a signatory on the bank.
She's the only one left. He was told
by the bank that she needed to come in with him. And
the, the out of the norm reaction was because she wasn't there
to do that, because the bank called him and said, this is bank
fraud. You're not a authorized signatory. And we're hard

(38:42):
freezing the accounts until all the authorizations are done.
He doesn't tell me that. He tells nobody that.
There is emails from the board that I have now,
but for the, for the sake of time, like, we, we
go through this daily, like, disruption, and I'm trying

(39:02):
to hang on to people. I'm getting complaint after complaint after
complaint that the board is harassing members of the department.
And then June 5th comes,
which is a Monday, so like the following Monday, and I get an
email from Alan Schultz, who's the board, like, vice

(39:24):
secretary or something like that, who responded
to the court injunction pro se. And he
emails me and I go, hey, I'm not a party to this, like, court thing.
I should not be in this email. And he says, you need to read it
because I'm asking for you to be charged with felonies. And I'm like,
excuse me. So in my contract,

(39:47):
big accusation to make. Yeah, absolutely. And, and what it was
is he's citing that I had access to election
security footage and, and in his
personal interpretation of the law, that that was illegal,
but clearly upset that he knows that I turned that evidence over to the district
attorney. And so in my contract, I have an

(40:10):
indemnification clause like every executive does. And I
contact the board president, Paul Del Toro, and
I say, like, hey, I need to invoke this. Like a member of the board
is threatening me with
legal action in his pro se response to the court.

(40:30):
And he kind of blows it off because, you know, that means they got to
pay for an attorney for me. And then June
6th comes, and June 6th changes everything because
they are about to have a meeting. And the head item on that
agenda was fire chief's duties and responsibilities,
to which when they posted that, I emailed, I said I have

(40:53):
contractual duties and responsibilities, and
my contract says that we both have to willingly enter into any
negotiation given this, you know, what's going on. Like, my
focus is going to be on operations. And I don't think this conversation is warranted
at this time. Maybe a little spicy written, but
I basically denied that. And so they go to start this meeting, and

(41:17):
I get a call from the insurance that says, you haven't paid.
That was due. It was due June 1st. It's now June 6th. You haven't paid.
Like, you're at risk of being canceled. And I
fire off an email to him, like, I need to speak with the attorney.
And what I glazed over is they had hired a new
attorney who had never represented a fire department

(41:39):
before. There seems to be some sort of connection there. But
I was trying to speak with him for the. The week prior to June
6 about the personnel complaints, one being
the EEOC federal complaint that was filed for his harassment.
And he won't let me speak to that attorney.
And so I have a bunch of emails back and forth where I've shared that

(42:02):
on my. My pages. But
all of a sudden they get
the. The phone call, and I said, I need to talk to the attorney, like,
now. And he's like, what's what? You know, blah, blah. And
I had the insurance lady call him. I said, you need to talk to the
board president. And basically what happens is

(42:23):
I. I get a call from the entire board on speakerphone,
and they say, you need to shut down operations of the fire district.
And I'm like, come again?
Like, you can't respond to calls. I'm like, holy.
You know, for the sake of. So

(42:44):
I literally have to post a memo on our website and our Facebook
that says we cannot respond to calls. Our
mutual aid partners have been contacted. They will. And
myself will remain in
response to any emergencies.
I'm sure you guys can understand the media lurch

(43:06):
onto that. So I'm getting blown up.
What. What is sad, what I found out later, and I just
recently showed that on my. My pages was Paul Del Toro,
the board president. Paid that immediately and,
and like their emails back and forth that I got through a public records

(43:27):
request and depositions and all that. But he paid it immediately from his
personal account because he knew that he couldn't pay it from
the district
accounts. So he pays a $23,000 bill from his
personal account within 11 minutes of the phone call.
Now, I don't know if you've ever done a bank transfer, but if you

(43:49):
were going to call the bank that is supposed to process this and say,
hey, I need to do this, and they go, no, you can't. Which is what
his, his story is that he didn't know that they had hard
froze the accounts and then get on with your bank, get a
person and do this transfer in 11 minutes. If that's a true
story. Like, I need that bank. But yeah, I know, right?

(44:11):
But he doesn't notify me and so I have a time stamped.
When he makes this payment and wires it an
hour later is when he tells me that I need to shut the
district down. So he knows he's already paid this, but he
shuts the fire district down. We are
not able to respond to calls for like three and a half hours

(44:33):
and like 8pm at night. I give the email, like,
insurance paid, we're good, you can respond to calls again. So then
I post it again, like, hey, really
embarrassed and really sorry, but the situations happen
and we're back in normal posture and
the media is blowing me up, man. So I

(44:55):
did do an interview and basically I just go like, I can't
believe what's going on. You know,
I've done this for like 22 years of professional firefighting and
I've never seen this. And I'm, you know, like, I'm the fire chief getting
illegal directives, like hoping that like
the gig's up for them, you know what I mean, and they'll stop doing.

(45:18):
But that, that didn't end up being the case. So
we move forward a little bit. Like, I go on vacation,
so my daughters literally just get out of school during this period of time for
the summer. And I haven't had a single day off in like
18 months. So for months my department and my captains
have prepared a staffing roster and like

(45:42):
are going to have full crews at the station every night so that I can
take time off with my kids. And I'm a workaholic.
So I, my, my vacation was that
I was still going to respond to all the calls and I was still going
to take care of the major like leadership and training. But I wasn't going to
be doing administrative duties for the most part. Right.

(46:02):
And so it gives me a couple days of space to, like,
breathe during this situation, and I'm spending it with my kids. And, you
know, it's. It's summer in Colorado. We're. I'm running calls like crazy
still, but for the first time,
like, just a leadership lesson in life. Like, my
guys and gals had me, and they were rocking out during

(46:24):
all this chaos. Like, they were so laser focused, and a lot of them
are brand new that we had trained up. And so, like,
from a leadership perspective to, like, step, sit back and see, like, how they cared
for me and how they. They wanted me to have time off. But also, like,
everything that I taught them was. Was now being implemented. Like,
and I'm seeing it and I'm like, man, we. We, like, this is what it's

(46:46):
about. And so that.
That happens for half a week
in the weekend, and all of a sudden the board starts having
executive sessions with just the attorney. But they.
In Colorado, and I'm sure in most states, if. If a board is going
to have an executive session, they have to post the reason and under the

(47:09):
law at which they are doing the executive session for
transparency laws. And so there's. In
Colorado specifically, if you're going to have an executive session
about personnel, you have to name the personnel. If they're
an executive and you have to notify them, well,
none of that is happening. And so they have three

(47:32):
executive sessions. And everybody's watching right now. We've just been shut down.
People are like, what's going on? What's going on? I'm like, look like the board's
gonna do what the board's gonna do. They haven't notified me of anything. And,
you know, rock out. Like, we're gonna keep doing our job
until January or June 21st comes, and I get an email from Paul
Del Toro, and he says, here's an agenda to review. We're

(47:55):
having a meeting tomorrow and you request it. Now, mind you, I'm still on vacation.
I'm on, you know, going into what would have been my second
week. And we're early in the week. And so I look at the agenda
and it says, executive session with the attorney again. And
then it says, evaluate the performance and duties of Eric
Holta's fire chief. So it's the first time they've named me, and he's

(48:18):
emailing me this agenda because I'm named.
And I'm actually like, they followed it this time on how it
has to be posted, but immediately under it says, evaluate
the employment of Ericultus fire chief. And then the one below it
hired interim chief. So like the writing's on the wall, guys, you know
what I'm saying? Everybody kind of goes crazy.

(48:43):
You know, I meet with my guys and gals and I'm like, look, like it
doesn't matter. I'm a figurehead. Like there, you guys
have the culture in your veins. Like you all have servant
hearts. You can remove me as an individual
and, and still perform at the same level. And that's what I need your focus
to be. And I was, I was really dedicated to that.

(49:04):
So June 22, 2023 comes,
I come to this meeting
and you know, like, we're, we're mostly volunteer stuff, so like a
lot of folks are at work still and can't make it. They, they did it
like 4pm but like 30, 40 of
our members are there and they kind of like cocoon around me, you

(49:26):
know, and I go through this
thing like they, they did this sort of self serving
investigation internally. They never talked to any member of the
department. And mind you, they've been aboard for a week and a half,
two weeks, something like that. And
they, they put together and highlight like these, these things.

(49:48):
And so when the department shut down, Paul Del Toro went on the news and
was like, this is, this is my fault. I did this. I froze the bank
accounts. The bank, you know, went back on their deal with me and a bill
didn't get paid. And they sit there and they,
they basically lay out that it's my fault
somehow that would be against the by, against banking authorization,

(50:11):
against the policy of the district that I didn't pay a bill.
And they frame it like I never had access
to like write checks. I wasn't on the bank accounts
to sign for a check. My policy limit was
$5,000 and this was a $23,000 bill.
And, and they, they just blame me. And I

(50:33):
kind of resist that. And I say like, okay, so
you're gonna say that it's against this policy and this bylaw and I, you
know, just like this back and forth thing and I just get sort of exhausted
by it. And one thing I didn't mention is these folks
are out to embarrass me personally at this point. They bring a
commercial popcorn machine from like a movie theater and

(50:56):
lemonade to a meeting where they're gonna fire their fire chief.
And they're like, like, it's a block party, man. And they're being very rude Very
disrespectful. And so eventually in
the meeting I just go look like, if you guys want to blame me, that's
fine. But like the fire department needs to continue its mission.
And so they read these kind of pre drafted statements

(51:17):
and they vote to terminate my employment. And
at that point I could have left, but like, I still love
my, my team here, you know what I'm saying? And I'm gonna stick around. And
so as soon as they're done with my vote, I stand up and I
mean, it's like popcorn being thrown and like set the F down,
being very rude. And I go look like there's a community here

(51:40):
that needs a fire department. And you have just removed me. That's fine.
My recommendation is the best leader left in this department is this captain. He's
also the most qualified and he has the trust and respect of everybody in this
room. And they all stand up and they all
back that statement.

(52:01):
If, if it can't be Eric, we want this individual. And they
accidentally slip and go, we already already talked to somebody about this. And
they, and it, it's another captain.
And all of a sudden you've got the, the traitor in
the room kind of scenario where they were like, oh my God, he went behind
everybody's back and he is the least

(52:22):
qualified captain, least experienced captain. The guy that I had recommended is
a, is a career fireman in the community, but very well respected.
And they, they are being super belittling
and they. There's a statement that gets made by Dave Groat, who was
like the secretary, and he goes, we don't want an Eric Jr here. So.

(52:43):
And there's a dichotomy in that situation because
in their minds I'm a bad guy. And so they think by saying that,
that that's a positive statement for them. But
it, with my team and, and everybody that loves and
cares for me as their leader, that's super offensive. And
so chaos erupts, man. And

(53:06):
people start shouting and all this and I'm just like, guys, calm down. Like,
you still got to go to calls, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's still
people that are going to need your help. And they just kind of continue
to, to belittle everybody in that room. And they,
everybody walked out and it was, it was sad, man.
And then, you know, I, I'm left

(53:28):
without a job. I gotta go tell my daughters.
I just made a video today where I really broke that down. Like I
had grappled with this moral decision and I was confident in what I was doing,
it was the right thing. But now I have to go home and tell two
teen girls that their dad doesn't have a job,
that I don't know how I'm going to pay our mortgage and feed them. And

(53:51):
anybody that's a dad out there, like, you got to put on that strong face.
And my, my girls are rock stars. I went home and I said,
look, like I lost my job. It wasn't a surprise. I talked
to him and gave him the highlights. Right. But
the benefit is, for the first time in your life, you're off for summer break
and dad's off work, and we're going to spend a lot of time together

(54:12):
and where their rock stars is. I know that they were scared,
but they trusted me when I said, everything's going to be fine. We hugged and
they went to bed. But, man, reality hit me. I
laid down that night terrified. Man, I. I've had a
paycheck since I was 14 years old, steady. And for the first time in life,
I didn't. And so the fear

(54:35):
hit, but my team stayed loyal. Like, they all left
the department. They, they were not going to be
harassed by people. And
the two days later, they, they handed me an envelope of $5,000. Go
get a lawyer. Which I hadn't had that like
a fight in me for that, but I filed

(54:58):
a lawsuit for first amendment violations, protected
speech. And I've been fighting that for two years now.
And recently. And why I'm on here is I just started talking
about it. I. I was quiet. I listened to my attorney, you
know, like, didn't say anything, and fought this battle. But

(55:20):
a Biden appointed federal judge who's a foreign born
just told me of an army vet recently that I don't
have a first Amendment right to it because she deemed election
administration within the scope of my duties as fire chief,
which goes against state law, which goes against
the employees that the board had hired,

(55:44):
but basically ruled in and granted summary judgment to dismiss my
case. So now I've appealed, which I wasn't going to do.
Anybody out there, man, build an army that, that will back you for everything you
do? Because I had admitted defeat, I got the ruling and I said, that's
it. And I, you know, like, I've recovered.
I'm in a great position right now. I run emergency services for a county where

(56:06):
I grew up. My kids are thriving. My oldest just graduated high
school with scholarships. She takes her EMT
before on Monday, like, rocking it. We are in
good spot. And so two years later, it's easy to say, like, I'm
good, you know, like, I don't need this. But my army behind me,
man, they're like, you can't. Like it's bigger than you, dude. It's

(56:28):
like if one, if, if one chief can say, like, here's video
evidence of fraud and be fired for none of us are
protected. And so I, I can't.
My, I called my attorney, he said, I want 50 grand up front and I'll
file the appeal. And I said, look, like I've paid you
$150,000. I sold my house.

(56:50):
You know, you've had that cash in pocket while I wait and you know,
attorneys are attorneys. So I
ended that phone call and just told everybody it was over and then
nobody would let me. And so now I'm pro se. I just,
my, my appellate brief just reached the court today or

(57:10):
yesterday. I'm sorry. So it should post tomorrow. But
I, I dug into case law and I, I wrote it myself. But
man, like all of the, the first amendment case law around
protected speech and employment backs that this was wrong.
And the district court judge has a history of making,

(57:31):
you know, these protect the state at all cost rulings. So
she was just in the news this week for stopping
ice from doing their thing in, in Colorado. So
that's some of the cards you get dealt. But as I read more case law,
all of them end up in the appellate court of the supreme court before ruling.

(57:51):
And so I, I detailed everything, man,
and I feel confident in that. And now I'm in a position
that, you know, if, if it takes 10 years to get to the
supreme court, I owe it to the oath that I took as a citizen. I
owe it to the country that I believe in, and I owe it to my
brothers and sisters in the public service. Because if it can happen to me

(58:14):
in this case law stands now, there's a precedent that's okay.
And so it's bigger than me and I'm going to continue to fight it.
Well, and just for everybody that's not aware,
once you were given that judgment at the federal district court
level, the next process is the federal Appeals
court, the 10th Circuit, which is out of Denver. Yeah.

(58:37):
U.S. in Oklahoma. We're under the same appeals court. And then,
you know, if they rule one way or the other, it can be appealed to
the supreme court, the u. S. Supreme court at that point. Yeah,
I, like I said, I feel confident. Like, you know, you,
you hire attorneys to do it and they don't know the intimate details of Everything.
And so it had never been pointed out that

(59:00):
saying that it was a duty of mine actually goes against state
law. And so, you know, a judge can't break law to
justify actions. Right. But there's other big cases, Lane versus
Franks and, and Garcetti versus Wallos and all those like
there is clearly defined case law
in, in tests. And so all the case law basically

(59:22):
says this it, to summarize it, that
protected speech of great public concern is protected
hands down. And if, if that can be
proven, the second test called the Pickering analysis. And
basically the state or the entity has to prove that they would,
their services or operations were

(59:45):
at such peril that like they could take that action. And
that's never been argued. And so the, the district judge,
Judge Wang said that I could not
prove the burden that it was, it was citizen
speech, not official duties. And I

(01:00:06):
argue that elections
weren't in the job description or duties ever in the history of fire
chiefs as an official duty. And so the Supreme
Court ruled that, you know, there can't be such broad
job descriptions to try to encompass protecting
criminal stuff. So. Right. My

(01:00:27):
argument basically is, is election integrity and election
fraud of great public interest? I think everyone, including
every listener that hears this would say, I think that's a pretty,
pretty big importance to, to the public.
Is it fire chief's job duties to administer and run
security for an election? I'm sure everybody has met a

(01:00:50):
fire chief and I, I doubt that they're ever viewed in that way.
And if anything at that point, you know, for security
wise, it usually falls on the county sheriff. Yeah,
yeah. Or the employees of the board or the board itself. That's who runs
it. Not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not the,
not the chief of the department. Yeah. And so I am

(01:01:13):
respecting the court process, of course. And so when something
posts with the court, it is officially a public document. So on my
justice for whole pages, when I log in on pacer,
anybody with a PACER account can go and type in Eric Holt
and go to the 10th district and you can read all the documents when
it posts on there. I'm going to post it on my justice for Holt Facebook

(01:01:36):
page for everybody to read because 1. Education
is important. I knew nothing about constitutional law, protected
speech, you know, like the ins and outs of it. But
now I, I feel like I've, I've read
so much and been a part of this battle that even if I
lost, educating people is worth it. And so I'll post it. Please read

(01:01:58):
it. Yeah, well, and here's the deal. I mean, this is the type of
things that people always think happen in
big towns that, you know, are super corrupt and they're stuffing the
ballot boxes and this is happening in, you know, I'm
not gonna say Colorado Springs area is super small, but it's
not Chicago or New York where you think that it always happens. Like this could.

(01:02:20):
If it could happen there, it could happen anywhere. Yeah. And, you know,
corruption runs deep in. In some places. Right. So the
things I've learned since this. So the DA
finished their investigation in like July time frame of
2023. And. And it literally says like, we found evidence,

(01:02:41):
but we're not gonna prosecute. And I'm like, I remember
getting that phone call and feeling so empty of, like, I went outside of my
job to protect democracy. And your job is actually
to prosecute this, and you're not going to. But
since I started sharing the story, somebody actually sent me a daily wire article that
just came out. The. The mayor election in May 2023 for the city

(01:03:04):
of Colorado Springs had some election irregularities to
it. And there was a. A
racism ploy that happened
that the FBI investigator was fraudulent. And
so there was orders in that district attorney's office
that anything election was going to get swept under the rug.

(01:03:26):
Andy Vaughn is the guy that made that decision. Deputy
DA got arrested himself
last year. You can look that up. Andy Vaughn, El Paso County District
Attorney's Office the investigator that I met with September
of 2023 lost his job for harassing a rape victim.
Sending, you know, pics of his junk to. To a

(01:03:48):
rape victim. Right. So these are the people that I was
given and trusted in to do their jobs that completely failed
me. But I'm going to keep that fight going. So now I've done, you
know, the state or the county DA failed
me. The state attorney general wouldn't do anything.

(01:04:08):
State of Colorado is hiding from anything election. Let me tell you
now, the federal court judge, you know, failed me in that.
But the 10th Circuit is the right circuit for this.
Most of the major First Amendment protected speech case law
comes through the 10th Circuit for some reason.

(01:04:29):
And so I'm confident in that step. But if that fails me, I'll go to
the Supreme Court, man. You know, like,
it's bigger than me. I keep saying you reached out to like the FBI or
anybody to try to investigate it on the criminal side, the federal level.
I had no luck. You know, like, unfortunately, the
2020 elections really made election stuff become like a conspiracy

(01:04:51):
theory. And so even on my socials, man, like I'm gated
down from, from my reach because,
you know, hashtag election fraud. Right. Or anything like that. So
it's a really hard battle. I did report to
the FBI and Federal Reserve the bank fraud stuff,
and I basically got two letters that came back that said like, oh, it's not

(01:05:14):
within our jurisdiction for this, but no referral. You know what I mean? So,
like, when you're a small fish in a
big pond and there's national level politics
surrounding this stuff, you know, the 2020 election
stuff. Right. The. This last
election, that seemed to have gone off a lot better. But like,

(01:05:37):
the changing of the guard, when you're in these transitions, it's
really, really hard. And I think some of the stuff right now, the judicial kind
of overreach that's happening is somewhat in my favor for gaining some,
some voices on this and, and helping me share it.
But, you know, socials are, are gated down. Their algorithms
don't like this stuff. So it's. It's really hard, man.

(01:06:02):
Yeah, it, it's like you're
fighting a stack deck. Yeah. And it's
easy to give up, man, if I didn't have the army behind me and people
love and care for me and, and I have a lot of patriots in my
corner. Luckily, my. My people are army
vets and, and who I served with and firefighters and they

(01:06:23):
are, you know, tried and true patriots and they
keep pushing me forward. And this whole thing, like, I have a real close friend
that was, like, when I called him and told him it's over, he's like, absolutely
not, man. This is what you do. And he, he actually owns a media company,
so he, like, he created the justice for whole Tick
Tock and Facebook for me, and I do the content, but I got their

(01:06:45):
backing and he started the GoFundMe for it, which is, you know,
it seemed impossible to kind of get that out there, but here I
am, I'm on your podcast right now, and I've got others that
are interested in talking to. The more that I share and the more that I
have the will to keep going without stopping the.
You know, that's how grassroots things work.

(01:07:08):
So I want to ask before I forget, because I have one more thing I
want to ask you after this. Where. Where can
they follow you at? And like, if they want to donate to the
GoFundMe, where can they go to look that up? So the easiest
thing is, is justice for Holt all one word? I don't know if you can
screen share, but it's on Facebook

(01:07:29):
justice for Whole. Tick tock, same name. And then
on GoFundMe, which is on both of those profiles, it's justice for
Whole with the spaces in between the words. But, okay,
you know, I'm not up for money. This is just to kind of keep the
court fees running. Absolutely. You know, I.
The. It cost 600 bucks just to file that

(01:07:50):
appellate brief. And, you know, every time you file something, there's a fee to it.
I did just file another lawsuit against them as individuals in the District court of
Colorado, which isn't federal. It's just county court.
Hopefully this doesn't post before Monday, because they get served Monday for
that. So. Okay, I can hold off to Monday for you. No, no, post it.
They won't see this yet. So let me ask you this.

(01:08:17):
After it goes through the court process, we're at where you're at
now. Have you had any contact with any of these
board members? Have they tried to still harass you or they still,
you know, anything, like, at all trying to, like, get in contact with
you? I had one reach out, Judy Dunn did, and I basically
told her to go to hell. I. I don't live

(01:08:40):
with hate in my heart, but these. These five people
and the people they're associated with, like, took everything from my ability to raise my
daughters, and I got to keep that fire in my heart to keep this going
there. The harassment is still going. I mean, like,
they will post board messages, meeting
stuff. There's only one left actually on the board now, which is

(01:09:03):
Paul Del Toro. Two of them
resigned within probably the first six months, and
then
the other two dropped out of this last election, didn't run for
their positions again, and. And then Paul Del Toro won.
But what happens with criminals and crooks, man, is the loyalties

(01:09:25):
aren't built on what, you know, good peoples are. And
so they're fractured, and they all talk bad about each other. But,
you know, I just got a message from a friend out there that, like, yesterday
they were talking smack still on me. They used to post
stuff, like, constantly. And one
thing, like, I can say is by sharing this, like, I was

(01:09:48):
naive to it. I was a fire chief. I'm really good at one thing in
life, and that's, you know, public service and firefighting. I've
never been in a criminal mindset, so
when they fired me, they, you know, they posted like, oh,
we're drilling locks, and we're doing this and we're doing that. And I was naive
to it because I was like, that sounds stupid. And then the very Next

(01:10:09):
board meeting they accused that we stole everything
and there was nothing left and no files and no
like hard drives are wiped and all that. And it dawned on me.
They had to get rid of me. And actually on
my page, I didn't mention that in this conversation. Like they were hyper fixated

(01:10:30):
on give us access to the security system. It was number
one thing in the first email I ever got. What's the location and
password and information to get into this. So when
they fired me, they literally. Spent wild to think about. Oh
yeah, insane. Like I. I ran for election to run a
fire district. Give me the security camera. Yeah, that would be probably like

(01:10:52):
the top five things on my. Right. Yeah. And that's the stuff I'm
showing people on my pages. But there's no way I could cover all of
it on, you know, this. But the night that they got
rid of me and everybody else, they. They burned and deleted everything, every
bit of evidence that could have been used against them. And
they have sold that story over and over again. They accused our

(01:11:15):
firefighters like stealing radios and stuff because what they did is they, they
deleted by accident like the inventory tracking.
And so our people were pretty smart where they like, they had video of them
turning it in and pictures of the serial numbers. So there's like this one
Alan Schultz on like the, the community pages was like, oh, they
stole this and you know, they should be charged and all this

(01:11:37):
stuff. And then one of our volunteers got on was like, here's
a picture and a video of me turning it in to the interim chief,
you know, and then it kind of like, oh, we'll change the narrative a little
bit. So it's. It's still going, man. But
I really don't think they know I'm out here telling the story yet. I don't
live in that area anymore. I got a bunch of friends that do. But I

(01:12:00):
have nothing to prove to those people. I have everything to prove to this
country and our constitution and my children, first of all.
So, you know, I don't know that they're
aware of everything happening. Like they're gonna get served another thing and, and
that goes after them personally. They're not protected by the district.
For four of them, they're not even part of the district anymore. So that's going

(01:12:23):
to be a big surprise, man. You know, the.
Anybody can stand in front. And something I learned, when
you're fired from your job, you lose something. People
look at you a little different, whether they're close to you or
so everybody in the community and
People that I knew, and I

(01:12:45):
understand it, but they had to go. There's got to be something true
there. If you got fired because you can't talk about a
criminal investigation, so it. I couldn't talk about that for two years,
man. So, you know, there was a lot of
isolation there, and. And anybody that gets in that situation,
prepare your. Your mind for it. But it is worth

(01:13:10):
standing up for what we are founded on.
I have been blessed so much in the last two years. My kids are
thriving. I have a better job now. I am
doing amazing. I have spent everything I worked for in life
to fight this, and that hurts. But money ain't the game
here. We have bigger causes. Right.

(01:13:35):
And that comes at a cost. I. I talked about that today on my. My
page when I did. The content comes at a cost, and you got to be
prepared for that. But without people doing that, we have
nothing left in this country. We don't.
Yep. That's very true. And, you know, you're. You're
absolutely right in that

(01:13:56):
once they get rid of you, people look at you and think,
well, there's got to be a reason they got rid of them. Like, it has
to be true, you know, and it
doesn't make it right, you know, but. But
it happens. And you've had to rebuild your
reputation because of a house of lies,

(01:14:18):
you know? Yeah, it was tough. I mean, I. I interviewed
Nate, you know, coast to coast, looking
for a job, and, I mean, I had to keep track of
it because I was in a lawsuit and. And try to figure out what
damages there would be. There's not enough
money in the world to, like, make the situation better.

(01:14:41):
Right. That's not what any of it's about. Like, I'm. I am so blessed that
my kids are healthy and they're thriving in life, and. And I got one going
off into the adult world with a great head on her shoulders. But
that's the punitive side of when you do something wrong. The courts make you
do that. So I had to track all of this, and I had
probably 100 jobs that I interviewed for, and I'm extremely qualified

(01:15:03):
in the fire service. Like, I have every
certification you could and the bachelor's degree, and I went to Cornell for
an executive program. Like, I can compete,
right? Yeah. But every single one of them, for about a
year and a half said, so your last job was. Were you terminated
for cause? Yes, I was. And I have to answer that truthfully.

(01:15:26):
And you can go on and see the stuff that was being put in papers,
right? Like, it's just not. It's a black eye. And so I.
I'm no longer a fire chief, probably for that, because I couldn't
find. Well, I take that back. There was some
opportunities, but ultimately, where I'm at now,
it's the best job that I was offered, and I'm extremely happy in it.

(01:15:48):
And, you know, still have a prominent position in
the. In the safety of the county I live in,
which happens to be where I grew up, too. So I actually have family now
in the district that I serve. That makes it even
better. Absolutely. And that's what I say. I've been blessed, man. Like, I make
more. I'm around family. My kids are around family.

(01:16:10):
My daughter just graduated from the high school I graduated from, so
through trials and tribulations, man, there's so many blessings. And I'm just.
Man, I. I wake up every morning with a clear conscious and a smile on
my face and just proud of what my kids have learned throughout this. You know.
Eric, it's been my pleasure to have you on tonight

(01:16:31):
to bring light to this. And, you know, if
you'd like to come back home eventually and there's more updates and everything,
you let me know and I will. I will shoot you my
number and we can stay in contact. And,
you know, kind of like you said, there's not really a monetary

(01:16:51):
value that can be attached to it, but for fighting the good fight
against corruption, you know, I tip my cap to you because it's
much needed. Well, thank you. And I. I will absolutely take you up on
it. As soon as there's an update with the appellate, you know, which is probably
nine months, ten months from now. I would love to come back on and
keep everybody up to date, man. This story is going to keep going until

(01:17:15):
it's rectified and. And, like, people are aware that these things happen. And
district by district, coast to coast, man, we're gonna make this country a better
place. I mean, free of corruption.
Yep. Absolutely. Well, Eric, stay in touch with me, and
I'll let you enjoy your night. Thank you for coming on. Appreciate it. Brent, man,
I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Have a good night. You too, brother.