We’re diving into an incredible story of courage and integrity today with Erik Holt, a former fire chief who has walked a tough path of standing up for what’s right. After serving 18 years in federal service, Erik transformed a small rural fire department into a well-oiled machine, only to find himself at the center of a storm when he reported some serious election misconduct. His commitment to the truth led to his firing for refusing to destroy evidence, and now he's embroiled in a federal lawsuit that raises important questions about free speech and retaliation. Erik’s journey is not just about being a fire chief; it’s about the heavy price of moral courage and the lengths one will go to uphold the Constitution. Get ready for a heartfelt conversation filled with laughter, reflection, and some serious food for thought on accountability and integrity!

Takeaways:

• Erik Holt's journey exemplifies the courage it takes to stand up for integrity, even when faced with severe personal consequences.
• After transforming a struggling fire department into a thriving team, Eric was fired for refusing to destroy evidence of election misconduct.
• The episode highlights the complex moral dilemmas faced by public servants when their duties conflict with their ethical beliefs.
• Erik's story emphasizes the importance of accountability and free speech in the face of retaliation and corruption.
• The discussion provides insights into the challenges of navigating legal battles when standing up against powerful interests.
• This episode serves as a call to action, encouraging listeners to protect their moral compass even in difficult situations.

Links referenced in this episode:

• JusticeForHolt
• justiceforholt
• JusticeRevolt

Today we welcome a guest whose story is a powerful testament to courage, integrity, and the cost of standing up for what's right. Eric Holt served 18 years in federal service before becoming fire chief of a small rural department in Colorado.

In just one year, he helped transform the department into a thriving, well trained team of over 60 personnel. But when he uncovered and reported election misconduct during a local board election, everything changed.

Fired for refusing to destroy evidence and punished for doing what he believed was morally and legally right, Eric now finds himself at the center of a federal lawsuit and a nationwide conversation about free speech, retaliation, and the limits of constitutional protection. Today, he shares his story not just as a former fire chief, but as a citizen who took an oath to the Constitution.

This is a conversation about integrity, accountability, and. And the real cost of doing the right thing. Eric, welcome to the show.

Hey, Keith. Thank you so much for having me, brother. I appreciate the opportunity to come on.

Love to talk to you. I'm looking forward to having this. The stories told and hearing your side of what it means to stand up for what's right.

It's never easy being a pastor. I know what it's like when you can choose the easy path. You can choose the right path.

Sometimes the right path is a little more difficult than the easy path.

Yeah.

And if it's okay, I mean, I would love to kind of give just the overarching part of the story because, you know, a lot of times it's political podcasts that I do. I don't get to have a deeper conversation that I think would be beneficial for us.

So if that's cool, I'll just, you know, everybody can go to my socials and watch the videos and kind of get the background. But if you're good with that, I would love just kind of get in the deeper aspects of it.

Yeah, let's do that.

All right, so I will give the broad strokes. I was in the army out of high school. I was a firefighter, got out, started federal service as a civilian working on military base.

You know, being on shift for 48 hours is never easy when you are a single parent. Right. So with this change in personal life, I needed to find a path.

You know, I could have made it work with friends, family, you know, but taking full custody of my girls is, you know, they are my focus. And so there was this troubled Department that had reached out to me, they had had some, some chaos and upheaval.

Their, their fire chief had been put on admin leave. The board had some resignations, which is very fractured.

And so being known in the community, they had called and asked if I could come in, serve initially for a two week period of time, kind of help them to understand, help the county understand what was going on with the department and what the problems were. And then I could kind of go about my way. But that turned in from two weeks into five months.

And during that five month period is when the court stuff settled and I, you know, I had full custody. So in that process, the lens at which I looked at my employment changed.

And after 18 years, yeah, I resigned with no promises, no guarantees, but I bet on myself that I could, I could obtain the full time permanent position. So we're talking like we're in June, July timeframe when I make this decision.

And in September I was officially hired as the permanent fire chief when I taken over the department.

Just some broad metrics I guess, but there was like four or five responders that were volunteer that, you know, weren't career professional certified firefighters. They were, you know, with many places across America and rural departments experience. But I came from a professional background.

Response times were abysmal. So, you know, I'm a data driven decision maker.

So I looked at the metrics and 18, 19 minute average response time was not what I thought the standard should be. If anybody want to understand that, like if you can't breathe, how long is a second, let alone 18 minutes? Right, exactly right.

Our job as first responders is to get there as quickly as we can with the most qualified people and the best equipment we can to make a difference in your life. And so I got to work, I rebranded the department, I started recruiting. I believed in a family culture that was based on professionalism.

And I always told my board, if we build something that has a good culture, recruitment is not a problem. And that couldn't have been more true. So within a year, not even that.

Our response times went from 18, 19 minutes down to seven minutes, which was my goal that I had set. We had 14, 15 EMTs that had gone from, you know, two to three.

We had hundreds of people come out. It was a fundraising event.

Historically, the highest grossing that I could ever find was about $8,000 fundraiser, which on a normal day is a great thing. Our event, as a metric came in, I think, at $27,000 for a one day.

Wow, that's impressive. Yeah.

I mean, that. That is the side that you see of community support, not just fire department support. So in. In from September until January, all this.

You know, you've got two sides of candidates on either end. There was a lot of political drama, as elections do, but I didn't really care who won, per se. Right. Of course, I was proud of what we had built.

And as a fire chief, it takes a board of directors to support your vision. I had had that. I didn't want to see that change. But like, you know, as individuals, it's not like I owe a loyalty.

My loyalty is to my firefighters and the community.

Exactly.

So, yeah.

So on election day, because it was so contentious, the board, the incumbent board, had voted to have an impartial election, that they would hire the law firm that represented the district to run it, and that they would have that authority, which was a great thing. You know, nobody could, like, internally have any effect on anything.

And so it was agreed that it would be at the fire station, because of the contentious nature of things, that I wouldn't be present, none of the firefighters would be present, unless, you know, obviously we responded to an emergency which did occur. So during election day, that's happening. I'm working from home.

We ended up getting a call for a gentleman, and during transport from his house to the medevac landing site, which is at the fire station, it was a significant call, initially reported, but in that transportation, the gentleman had a cardiac arrest. And so, you know, we're in a CPR call, you always try to do everything you can. This situation ended in the bad way. The gentleman did not make it.

And now my job as fire chief is to go with the paramedic and inform the family, which is never an easy situation. But as I came back to the fire station to retrieve my command vehicle after that call, after talking with the family, I got a citizen complaint.

And.

Immediately like heard the complaint, took them to the designated election official, who's the paid by statute election official, and said, hey, this citizen has a complaint. I'm going about my way. And so at the end of that election, it was a 12 hour election day.

This slate of five people that was against the incumbents ran as a slate. They said, vote for one, vote for all of us. We run as a, you know, a group, blah, blah, blah. They won five, all five seats.

But there were some, some anomalies in the numbers. Suddenly, you know, you can see voting records, right? Like how many people? So like, exactly.

Even that night, you know, I had to go back after the election and everything and everybody had left and get, you know, the key back from the designated election official. And she was just like, you ever seen a heavyweight fighter after a 15 round bout? Like, she just looked like that.

Just, you know, I was like, and you know, hope you get home safe. And she's like, today was crazy. You know, the numbers are insane.

So there was a 3x on the amount of voters versus historical, which isn't an anomaly in itself, but sometimes, especially in a local election, right, that is contentious. You might get that. So that in and of itself wasn't super alarming, but it was a little bit, right?

And then like in the day or two after the election, I was in the local grocery store and somebody was like, hey, I got a complaint for you. Somebody, when I came in to cast my bell, was filming me. And I was like, who?

You know, and they're like, oh, well, the poll watchers like literally were filming me and like saying nasty things. And I was like, well, that doesn't sound lawful. Let me report that.

And so, you know, I connected them to that DEO who still has that responsibility until the election gets certified. And she said, well, hey, you know, it's like since we talked the other day, there's been some more complaints. Like there's something of worry here.

We've got. This is like two years ago. So I think there was like three or four at that point of, in a small jurisdictional election.

And so I had talked to the Attorney that represents the district. And my way of explaining that is as the fire chief, I have a direct line to the attorney that protects the liability of the entity.

So the attorney doesn't represent the board of directors, it doesn't represent the fire chief.

It literally is the entity that is the structure of, like, the taxing and all that stuff, and protects the liability, who also employed the designated election official. So I was in communications with her independently, without my involvement.

She's talking to the incumbent board president who's now in that, like, lame duck period, post election. And so they're communicating, but everybody agrees, like, there's something amiss here. And we, like, you know, they're trying to figure it out.

I'm trying to do my job. But I had. I'd been disturbed enough by it that the upfront of this is I knew my best interest was to not get involved. Right.

These five people who've just been elected are going to be my bosses.

Correct? Right.

The worst thing I can do personally is go against them. So I'm fighting this feeling with people are saying that the election was tainted, that these people were elected. And you have to grapple that.

Like, if you're ever going to get into a moral dilemma, you have to grapple your personal interests, which in this case was shut up, don't do anything, don't talk to nobody, and keep your job, especially as a single dad. Or the moral dilemma, which I chose, otherwise it wouldn't be on here. Right.

But I decided one night after putting my girls to bed that I couldn't deal with a moral dilemma and not doing something. So, you know, whatever any of your listeners believe, like, there is something out there that guides us.

And so for me, I just could not turn a blind eye. And I knew that, and I made a conscious decision with an internal conversation.

And man, my creator in my bedroom one night, and I just said, all right, man, you can't let it go. You've got to take what you think is the moral path. Are you ready for the ramifications of that as a single dad?

And I didn't know the answer, but I knew the path and I went down it. And that path was to investigate it on my own accord. So I went to Walmart.

Let me stop you there for a second, because I'm curious. When we hear about election irregularities, as you did this as a citizen, not as a fire chief. Right. When you decided to.

Yeah. And that's a very important distinction here. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, I did this off duty. Right.

Nobody Paid me to do anything but be a fire chief, to lead firefighters, to lead operations, to adhere to a budget and policies of the fire district and again against my own interests to look into this. Right. So that's a very delineating factor of like was I assigned this duty?

Was it an official duty that I was contractually obligated to do or paid to do or was it something that I took my own initiative on, I. E. Citizen duty. Right. And we're going to jump back into that, believe me.

So yeah, I literally there's a security system in the station that is ran by a third party company that the board of directors had approved prior to my time even there being installed. This company had off site servers, did all the IT, all this stuff. Right.

Literally the function of me was make sure the bill got paid for the IT support. So I knew of them.

Please let me know how much when I can pick it up. They said absolutely. And why they said absolutely is because it's a public tax funded building. So like nobody can say no. Right?

It's not that I had access as the fire chief to these people. I literally wasn't even wearing a uniform. I just went in like I am. Did they know me as the fire chief? Sure.

But did that get me access to the security system? Absolutely not. It's a public building and that's something for citizens of this country that expose corruption to understand.

Like if it's a public building that you pay for of your taxes, there is open laws, right? They can't, they have to be transparent. So I got it. I did not know what I was looking for. I'm a fire chief at this point in my life.

I've been a fireman for now, 20 years of my life. That's what I'm good at in life. I am not a politician, an attorney, a law enforcement officer or investigator.

So when I say I knew nothing about what I was getting myself into, I knew nothing. But I, I literally like. It's a different feeling when you like being guided by that internal feeling.

But now when I'm holding the thumb drive it's a very different feeling. It's like I Don't know, I've never held anything radioactive, but I imagine it's kind of that feeling like tingling when it touches your skin.

So I go home, I cook dinner for my girls. I think I got it like the next day I think they called me and hey, go pick it up, right? Cause all they had to do was download it and move it over.

Went and paid them again out of my personal bank account. Go home, cook dinner, hang out with my kids, put em to bed. And then I'm left with like, what else can I do? Ah, I got the day's over.

I guess now I can start to look at this, but I'm trying to find an excuse not to. Cause I'm nervous, man.

So as you got this thumb drive and you're about to go through and basically open up Pandora's box.

Great. Yeah.

What are you looking for when you're, I mean, is it in your mind you're going, okay, I'm looking for evidence of some irregularities or you just kind of looking at this going, maybe something will stand out. I mean, what are you going into this with the mindset of yeah, again.

So super naive, man. Like I didn't know. And so like I literally was just sitting there going like, how do I find something? Like I don't know what I'm looking for.

And so I just, I guess it was a good idea, but I had the idea. Let me go on and Google election laws for the state of Colorado and print it out. And I read it.

And then in that was a list of like rules that were pretty, pretty cut and dry.

Like no electronic devices within the polling location, no electioneering, no recording, no tabulating votes, no disseminating results, no, you know, like it's pretty basic stuff. And so I read that first and then on that rules sheet, I think there was like 15 rules that I had like honed in on. I started watching.

It's, it's four cameras, 12 hours each broken into one hour segments. So it's like 48 hours of footage and I don't know what I'm doing.

So I watch it, I started watching it and every time I would see something like again, it's it. You don't have to be a physicist, right? Like, oh, no recording devices. I can see on camera recording vice put a tally mark.

So I go through this like 48 hours of footage and now I'm holding a page where I, you know, there's tally marks and there's hundreds of them. And now I'm like, I go back And I look at, I'm like, there's hundreds of these. And in layman's terms, to me, I was looking at violations of law.

This is the law. I just went through this footage and I tallied up every time hundreds of them occurred. That's hundreds of times the law was broken.

As simple as I can make this, that's illegal. But I didn't feel like it was enough. Like it was enough to keep me invested in figuring it out. But I had to find this scheme, right?

And so what the scheme was. And please, for your listeners, go to my social pages, JusticeForHolt, Facebook, Twitter or X and TikTok. And the videos are there, right?

Like, I break this stuff down. But what I, what I uncovered as I went back through it a second time was the first thing that I tipped to was the, the camera location was great.

So if you walked in the front door of the fire station and you came in, you would have to go from the front door all the way to the camera in the back corner. Underneath the back corner of that camera was the poll watching location. And then out from there was the boost.

So you, the camera looked at the screens or you couldn't see what any voter was doing, as you would imagine. Like, you don't want to see that, but it looked directly in 4K high definition down on the poll watchers, okay. And their interactions with people.

And so the first thing I tip to that was cause for alarm was the first thing was like in the first hour, the lady, one of the poll watchers, opens a laptop and is recording voters or that room, right? Which is very easy when you're, you're just trying to figure it out. And it says no recording of. And I'm like, oh, that's a pretty egregious one.

But on the camera, the, the security camera, you can see the image of her screen and it's, it's recording the room. And then I started to observe. Voters would come in, they would get their ballot, you know, you. They got to sign, they get vetted or whatever.

I don't know. Even still to this day, as much as I've gotten into, I think they confirmed that like their residence was within the district.

I don't think they had a show ID or anything like that.

They would get their ballot, they would walk to one of those screens to which they would be behind in the camera, and when they would come out, they would either thumbs up, they would nod kind of, kind of weirdly. Thumbs up, some, some action, right?

And then I Could, I could tell, like the poll watchers, there's six of them, they would, they were doing something every time they would get like this thing. And I was like, are they checking in with poll watchers? Like, are voters checking in with them?

And so the other thing, and I mentioned this when I had been there on election day, this, the lady that had come up to me and told me, like, oh, I have a complaint.

What that complaint was is a poll watcher walked out of the station and she happened to be walking out behind her and the lady was on her cell phone, which just being on her cell phone as a pole watcher was a violation of the law. And was overheard her saying, well, did you pay them already? So it's the vehicle pulling into the fire station right now.

Okay, what, what vehicle is it? And then that's what the complaint was.

So I knew the timestamp because I could go back to my, my response logs from the call I was on and get the time. So I went to the time from the outside camera, which has audio to that time that I was there.

And right before that lady comes up to me, this happens and it's on audio. And she walks out. And the first part is cut by wind, which would have been the did you pay them? Part, but the rest of it corroborated.

You, you can ask her, oh, is this the vehicle? And she's looking. And then two people get out of a vehicle, walk to her and she, you can hear her tell who to vote for.

Again, when you're looking at the rules, like you cannot tell people who to vote for. That's like Rule 101, right of election. So I could corroborate what the complaint was with what I can see on footage. And so I'm like, okay.

And then I caught the other bit of this. Part of it was, remember I was saying they were doing something every time, like a voter would, would check in, quote, unquote, nod, thumbs up.

Yes.

Point at em. I had to go to like slow motion, frame by frame. But I caught it and it was one of the poll watchers. And they, it was clear in this one frame.

It was a track counter. And so those circular things, you hit the button and it tabulates.

Oh, yeah, like a baseball game almost.

Yeah, exactly.

More complicated.

Yeah. So they were, they were sitting there tabulating every time the voter would. And I could see it now. It was boom, right?

And then I caught, you know, now I'm watching the poll watchers and so I, I could see them comparing the Track counter counts and confirming stuff and they're all working together. And I go, okay, that's the scheme. Somebody complained that they overheard a poll watcher confirming, like, did you pay him?

Right, so incentivizing is what I said, incentivizing a voter.

They are then greeted when they arrive at the station to cast their ballots, told who to vote for, they go behind the screen, they fill out their ballot and then they confirm it to the poll watchers who then are tabulating it. And I sat there and I was like, oh, pat on the back, you crack the egg. I figured it out.

But I go, you know, like, that's not enough to, to guarantee an election by any means. That's just you, you're incentivizing people. That's illegal. You're keeping track of it. That's illegal.

But unless you know the counts, you can't guarantee a victory, right? And so another camera that I hadn't got to yet once I got into this is in the ballot counting room.

So most of the day it was just an empty room with camera running, right? So when I got the footage, it's like. But what I didn't know when I had started, it was like that's where they were going.

Two election officials that were paid to like ensure the laws were followed, that swear an oath, like, this is a pretty big deal. And two poll watchers who also take oaths, go through training on what isn't allowed go into these rooms and they're literally counting ballots.

And when I started to watch those interactions, I got chills in my spine because the first thing I caught was an election official.

So they're sitting at a very small table, like a fold out table, two chairs on this side, two chairs on this side, three foot of distance between them, right? And if nobody's ever seen a Paul watcher, they're literally allowed to sit there quietly and observe, not speak, not interact, not be entangled.

They're there to ensure that like a fair election happened.

That is the poll watchers role in front of this election judge who's reading off names of cast ballots and is a poll watcher sitting there with the track counter. And I can hear the audio, that it's very audible and he's not hiding it directly in front of an official.

And I go, how could this person not stop that? You know? And then she kind of made a joke. The election official was like, oh, this election's fixed.

And I was like, oh man, tell me these people aren't all in on this. You know, and then another clip later in the day. And again, these clips are on my social media pages. But there's another set of poll watchers.

And this is, I think it was the final ballot count of the day. And the election official again, is like, oh, we knew this was contentious. You know, we went through our training and we got our oath.

And the designated election officials said we got to play everything to the letter of the law. And she's, and she said, you know, what I said is, who's going to enforce these rules? Not me.

And I'm like, oh, Lord, like, they're all in on this, man. Like, how devastating to see this.

And so the whole scheme really came into view is that not only were they incentivizing, somebody was coordinating off site. They knew the votes as they were being counted. Right.

So if you count, if you have one person count, oh, 600 people have showed up and 400 have confirmed with us. We know we're ahead, but does that guarantee it? No.

But if you're in the ballot counting room and you're sitting there tabulating in front of an election judge and then you're texting it out or phone calling out what those numbers are, then you can guarantee it.

And so the final piece that put everything all together was one candidate and three poll watchers meet under the outside camera, which has crystal clear audio. And they literally detail how many voters had showed up, what they needed the total number to be under to guarantee they had won.

The poll watcher's bragging that he was sitting there like right in front of her and they're not enforcing it and they don't care. And I was like, okay, I got it. I have uncovered what the scheme was. I've uncovered why the vote totals were three times historical average.

I've uncovered, confirmed why a non incumbent that could have, you know, they ran on the success of the department at this point lost. That never happens. Right. If, if you're doing something that's.

That'S good, people tend to like it. Yes.

Yeah. Two weeks before, we just had the biggest fundraising event. Right. Like, none of it added up. Now I can explain the why.

And so I contacted the attorney again. I said, here's, here's what I've uncovered. And of course she represents the district, she doesn't represent me. But she said, you got to be careful.

Of course, but this is very concerning. She is now in a conflict of interest in a dual role because she's the attorney for the district. But also they ran the election.

And so now Election integrity and her role somewhat conflict. Right. Or at least it's about to. Very rapidly, let me say that.

Yes.

So she reached out to the district attorney's office and filed and sort of independently, three things happened. She reaches out to the DA I had talked to her that we needed to get it to the DA But I didn't know she had called. So I independently called.

And I was an idiot. I was a moron. I was just like, can I talk to the DA and they're like, no, we're a huge district.

You're not talking to the DA And I'm like, oh, well, okay, who can I talk to? Right. So I end up meeting with investigators, showing him everything.

And then the third thing that happened is that incumbent board president and the attorney had spoken and decided that the board president would file an injunction with the court to stay the election until this investigation could happen. Right. So all these things kind of happen at the same moment.

And by that point had built a spreadsheet that timestamped every election by who did it and at what time, and. And what law they broke. And so I just handed this over, man. And I trusted that it would. It would be handled. And my life changed so rapidly.

So the board didn't honor. Well, I wouldn't say they didn't honor. They had no interest to wait for the court to decide.

So they just sort of came in and said, we're the board now. We're in power. Which is a very weird verbiage to use when you're a fire department board directors to begin with.

But their first order of business was to freeze or. I'm sorry, send me an email.

Number one item on the email on this list of things I must do is to give them the locations and username and password to access the security system.

So, Keith, if you had just been sworn into a board of directors seat for a fire department, is your top priority give me the access to the security system, or is it like the.

Operations possibly if I was. If I was not open up and honest? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, they're. They're in lies, right? So it was a very.

It was a big tell to me that that was number one on their list right before, hey, what's the budget for the year look like? Are the trucks fueled? Do we have firefighter? You know all these things. And so I was like, oh, man, they're. They're worried about this.

And then their second order of business, on May 26. So on May 25, they declared themselves like, we're in power. And they like, posted on social media and it's all this bravado.

I will say my job was not to get involved in that. My job was to lead the fire department. And I tried to stay separate from that.

So I had wrote a memorandum to the attorney that literally asked for clarification, like, who is my board of directors? Who has the authority to make decisions?

You know, and I, I always joke, but there's like a little bit of foreshadowing in there that I said, as the fire chief, this places me in a very tense situation that I fear may operate or may disrupt the operations of the fire department and our personnel. And let me tell you, man, I was spot off.

So May 26, the next day, this guy Paul Del Toro, who's now claiming to be the board president, goes to the bank where our district bank accounts are and says, I'm the board president, I'm freezing all the bank accounts. And the bank goes, okay, that's weird, but you're the board president. Sure.

Until like two days later, the bank's legal department reviewed and said, this guy's not on the bank accounts. He has no authority to do that. I. E. This is bank fraud. Right. I can't go into Keith Haney's bank and say, hey, I own his account, freeze it. Right.

That would be bank fraud. And so that happens and literally like bill stopped being paid. I don't get told this as the fire chief, that the.

The bank's legal has stepped in and has frozen all assets of the fire department.

So as the fire chief, the bylaws and the policies gave me authorization up to $5,000 to pay a bill on an emergency, you know, outside of budget. That's approved. This bill was $23,000. I don't have access to the QuickBooks as the fire chief because it's a board thing.

So I couldn't even like cut a check or make an ETF or anything like that. And oh, by the way, there's a hard freeze on the bank accounts because of bank fraud. Right. But this bill doesn't get paid.

And then an internal investigation gets done. And 33 days from the day I turned over evidence of election fraud and video, I was fired for the insurance bill not being paid.

Um, obviously that doesn't hold water if you get into the evidence of things, which I felt confident in. But it's. It's hard to get to this next step because I'm the dad side comes in, right? So I had two teenage girls. One was 16 going on 17, one was 13.

And I am their world, I'm their support. I am dad who they live with full time.

They held a public meeting where they bought a commercial, they brought in, I think they rented it, commercial, popcorn machine and lemonade dispensers, and like, threw a party to embarrass me.

Oh, my good.

To fire me. And so it wasn't just like that. I had a huge. So, like, members of the community, the 60 plus firefighters, like, everybody, like, they.

They embraced me.

But I've never felt lonelier in my life than that night because I was sitting there trying to figure out how I go home and tell my girls, even though I'm surrounded by people that love me and are embracing, like, we got you. But I no longer. I remember, like, sitting there. You ever been in a.

In a moment of life where it zooms out and you're like, overlooking yourself and it's just silent? So I. I'm sitting in this big room surrounded by my entire fire department and supporters as they read off their votes to terminate me.

And knowing that it was like this BS thing, right? Like, we just held a meeting. They're like, you didn't pay the bill. I'm like, I couldn't pay the bill. You froze the bank accounts.

Well, that doesn't matter. You could have tried. Well, I don't even have access to the system.

And if I had access to the system, I would have been in more trouble for doing that outside of policy and bylaws than I would have not paying. Like, there's. None of this makes sense.

But lo and behold, all five vote to terminate me, and my world zooms out and I'm just like, oh, my God, I gotta go face my daughters, you know? And so there was. It was quite an uproar.

Immediately after they voted, I stood up and I said, look, this community Matters like people still need the fire department. And although you've removed me, this is the next most senior guy, the most qualified person.

And I think that all of these firefighters here would support him stepping into that role now that you've gotten rid of me.

And.

And with that, I step away from my responsibility here.

But it was like an, an act of what, you know, love to the community as I still wanted when they down and want somebody qualified to get there as quickly as possible with the best training available. Right, sure.

And the board took that opportunity to double down so that not only do they have this commercial, movie theater, popcorn machine and lemonade acting like it's this block party, they took it as a chance to disrespect to not only me, but everybody that cared about me as their leader. And so he stood up and they were like, oh, we don't want a little Eric or we don't want anybody not loyal to us and all this stuff.

And he's like, I just care that we continue to, you know, like, this guy is as close to like the same mentality and heart that I had as the fire chief as like my right hand guy. And he had the trust of everybody. And everybody stood up. All of the firefighters there said we, we would absolutely.

And they go, oh, we had this other guy in mind.

And everybody was like, no, no, he was a member of the department but was not qualified, had no firefighting, no fire officer training, none of it, versus this guy that was real close to as qualified as I was. Right. And like, well, we already met with them and they're like, what do you mean you already met with him?

You're supposed to be doing this independent investigation and this, you know, and so they kind of played their hand and literally like interrupted.

They just, the board disrespected them so much that everybody walked up and as it hurt on a different level because it's something we had built and cared about.

And the community, you know, wrapped its arms around and these five people and they're, you know, small group, is tearing it down in the most disrespectful way possible. So I, I leave that situation, I calm all of everybody down there. I mean, there's tears. They're so mad what has happened to me.

And I'm like, look, this isn't about me, guys. You know, it's about a bigger thing. So please continue to answer calls.

But I go home, man, and I like you talking like a two mile drive that seemed like 200. I mean, it was like, I Knew what I was going to face.

And I mean, any dad out there that has kids, man, every time that you open that front door, they come running, right? And mine did that. And I was just crushed.

I was just like, girl, I gotta, you know, sit down and tell you, and you want to talk about powerful moment, Keith? I told my girl, I'm like, look at this house. We have the clothes, like, food. I don't know how we're going to do it, but I'm your dad.

I'm a fine away, and we're going to be okay. And they were like, yeah, like, they. They had an unwavering belief in me that I've never earned, right? Like, or.

Or I don't deserve, I don't think, but admit, like, we are going to be okay. And they didn't even, like, blink. They were just like, okay, yeah, let's do this. And I'm like, all right, well, thank you.

You know, and all of a sudden, my world came back when. When my daughters, you know, embraced me in that trust of like, we don't question that. We know we're gonna be fine.

I was just like, the weight of the world came off. Like, I've still gotta figure this out. But I have the faith of these two girls, the only two people that matter in the end of the day. Right, Right.

And so, yeah, I did. I got an attorney. Of course, they were like, oh, this is open and shut. I did not know the federal court system, but.

Well, let me backtrack a little bit.

So I get an attorney, they file a lawsuit, and then very shortly after, I get a call from the DA's office, the investigator, and they're like, hey, we no filed this case. And I'm like, what's that mean? Oh, we're closing it. Nobody's being charged with anything. And I'm like, what do you mean?

Like, I just lost everything in my life that I've worked for, and I handed it to you on high definition cameras. Ow. You know, and that was a big blow because now there was nothing that was going to correct the ship. Right?

Like, the fire department was going to continue to burn at the will of these people who I know and watched very intimately on high definition cameras cheat the civil process. But I still had the chance of the federal case. Right? So for two years, you navigate through that, and it's all procedural.

When I say I was naive, I thought, it's easy. I go in, I get a jury, here's the evidence.

I saved every email, every text, I recorded all the phone calls, they committed bank fraud and then blamed that. This is easy. No jury would ever go against me, and I never got to that point. We went through procedure, so filed a complaint, motion to dismiss.

I got a partial victory on that under the Colorado Government Immediate act, that the federal court wasn't the jurisdiction for that. But the First Amendment claim survived, and then from there, they filed a motion for summary judgment, and the judge granted it.

And that means my case is dismissed on the broadest sense possible. I was flabbergasted, so we touched on it.

If I'm in my citizen duties and I cooperate with law enforcement and somebody retaliates against me, I'm protected by federal law under the First Amendment. If I'm doing that in my official capacity as the fire chief, what I'm employed to do, I'm not protected.

And so Judge Nina Wang in the Federal District Court of Colorado applied the broadest ruling I can. I can imagine that literally, again, official duties are. What are you paid to do? Right? What do I give you? Money compensation to perform.

That's an official duty.

I don't know how Judge Wang arrived at the fact that investigating election fraud off duty at my own expense and cooperating with law enforcement was an official duty, but she said it was and dismissed my case. And so now I took another hit. And if you want to talk about a despair moment in life, this is where we get to, right?

So over two years, I had to sell my home, the only asset I had, and move halfway across the country to live in a camper at my stepdad's house while I looked for a job. I sold my house, my one asset, and I gave the money to an attorney. $150,000, because it was my only way out, right? Like, my career is gone.

I worked for 22 years, up the ranks, through to be a fire chief. And in less than a year, I get fired in the most embarrassing. Like, I'm radioactive in the fire service to find a new job.

I flew all around the country, interviewed hundreds of times. People would tell me that we love you. Like, your track record's great, but you have this case going on. Got fired. And so I just. I.

You want to talk about being down? And so I'm literally living in a camper in my stepdad's backyard with my two daughters, my dalmatian, and my girlfriend.

Now, who I met during this journey. And I get this. This summary judgment handed down. I'm just like, how can I keep losing this? Like, it did the right thing.

And I believe in doing the right thing, you know? And my attorney calls, and he's like, do you want to appeal this? And I'm like, yeah, it's wrong. He's like, I agree. It's wrong. And I'm like, let's go.

And he's like, well, you got to give me $50,000 up front, and I'll appeal it. And I'm like, I don't have a dime, man. Like, what do you want? I can't do that. Do you believe in this or you don't believe in it?

If you believe in it, help me out. If you don't, you know? And he's just like, that's about money, you know? Like, he ain't got to pay me. And I was.

That was the lowest I've ever felt, personally, right? My life is full of blessings. I have amazing kids. I'm an amazing girlfriend. I have amazing family and friends. But I had lost everything I believed in.

The moral fabric of, like, my character was defeated at this moment. And it came down to. I had accepted it for, like, a week. I just was in a dark spot. Like, how do I rebuild life? I'd gotten a new job.

It was a huge blessing where I grew up, right? Not in the fire service, but something to the side of it, right? Making enough money to move out of the camper and find a rental home.

So life is blessed still. It's not like I was depressed or suicidal or anything of that nature, but the moral fiber of what I believed in had been defeated.

And so I just was in that despair. And I'm. Again, these moments in life that just kind of change you.

I'm eating dinner with my daughters, and I've just been thinking about the unfairness of this thing the whole time. And my friends and family are. Folks, if you.

If you're ever going to embark on a journey of life, do it with an army, like, of loyal, loving human beings that will serve the greater good in you when you don't expect it, right? So I'm just defeated. And everybody has been in this journey, and I'm just like, I give up. I give up, you know? Like, you can't do that, man.

You know, we know your story. We know. And I'm like, I don't have it. I don't know what to do. And so I'm eating dinner and my girls, you know, teen girls, man. And I'm. It's.

It's just like a silence. I'm. I'm just in my thought, and they're Talking to me, but, like, I don't hear anything. It's just dead silence.

And I remember this, like, I don't know if it's divine. I don't know if it's, you know, what I just needed at the moment.

But in that silence, I'm looking at them and I go, these two girls are never gonna see me quit. Something I'm dedicated to and I believe in, like, my morals, my character. What I believe in is so much more important than win, lose, anything.

And my role in life, first and foremost is dad. Not fire chief, not friend, not. It's dad. That's what's important. And so, like, this rush of, like, clicking, just like, I'm not quitting.

Whatever it takes, I'm in this fight. These girls will never see me quit. And so I literally figured, like, I just started reading case law. I appealed this thing on my own.

A big change was without an attorney, there's nobody telling me to shut up and just, like, not show this. So I said, you know, I have a very good friend that does media stuff. And he's like, start a Facebook. Start making videos.

And I'm like, I'm ugly and I talk stupid, and I've never made a video in my life. I don't know what I'm doing. He's like, you just start talking, man. Tell the story, tell it accurate, tell it honest, show the evidence.

And thankfully, because of that advice, I started my. My Socials Justice Revolt, Facebook x TikTok. And I just started sharing them. And from that, a lot of good has come.

First and foremost, my daughters have seen me stay in the fight, no matter how many defeats. And I think that's if I could share any message to any listener that's number one, 100%.

I now have a legal fund that's helping me in the appellate case I took on filing a state because I had that one dismissed under the Colorado government immunity Act. I filed that pro se in the state court. And then in this process, and I'm almost done, man.

I know we're running on this, but I'm doing my appellate briefs before I have this legal fund come forward. And in the middle of the night, I'd been reading all these case stuff, right? And in the middle of the night, I shot up out of a dead sleep.

And two synopsises of information that were hugely important came into focus in my sleep. And the deputy district attorney that dismissed the criminal investigation is named Andrew Vaughn.

And it's spelled V A U G H A N, not just G, H N. So it was a little unique, right? And I've been litigating against an insurance company, which is kind of a crooked game in my opinion.

But like I'm never, I'm not litigating against the people that did wrong. Now I'm doing against liability insurance that doesn't care about any human factors. So I don't know who I'm finding for the most part.

But in my briefs I read Vaughn & DeMuro Law Firm represents the criminal conspirators in this. And I go, there is no way as I'm shooting up at 2am that those two bonds are connected, but they both spell it in this unique way.

And I just was like. And literally I like laid back down and fell right back to sleep.

But the second I got up in the morning, I contacted a private investigator and I said, hey, I need somebody that can look into this that you know and tell me if I'm crazy. And literally like a couple hours later, it's father and son, dude. And I was like, oh my goodness. So what took place?

If I'm very gracious, insurance then receives it from the court within a week, right? It's got a process through the system. Then they get mailed a notification, they get served. I can see when they got served, which is like July 27th.

They hire a law firm. Let's give them another gracious period of a week.

That placed it within seven, three to seven days of the guy that ended up being the son of defense lead defense counsel. Canceling it the same week is the best case scenario.

As tight as three day window without a conflict of interest ever being so ethics and being what they are and the law, if there's a, if there's a conflict of interest, you just have to disclose it. And that was never done. And so nearly two and a half years later, I've uncovered deeper corruption.

And now I'm fighting a third leg of this, which is I have engaged and I am applying as much pressure as humanly possible on the district attorney's office to reopen the criminal investigation of these people and to criminally prosecute the election fraud.

Because the only reason that it wasn't prosecuted is because daddy Vaughn called Son Vaughn and said, go ahead and get rid of this, I can't defend this. And sun showed up on Monday morning and used his authority. It's literally his signature that says this is closed.

And so that's where I find myself today.

Wow, that's quite a journey you're on. So give us.

As I hear your story, I keep thinking to myself, for those who want to do the right thing and are faced with this moral dilemma, what advice would you have for someone who's maybe in a situation similar to yours?

Well, I always think the right answer is to do the right thing. But I will never lie to anybody that it's an easy path. So prepare yourself mentally, you know as much as you can financially.

Make sure that those around you are aligned with your moral compass, and the rest will be rocky. But if we don't, right, if we are citizens of this country, citizens of this earth, and we believe in something, if.

If we don't protect it, evil wins. And so I had an interview recently, and I said, you know, Isaiah 6.

8.

I may not have stood there willingly said, send me, I'm ready. But in some regard, I had to have been chosen for this path because I don't allow my moral character to falter.

And.

And it sucks. It's not been fun, it's been full of stress, and it's been full of tears and worry over my girls and fighting to protect them.

But I'm still in this fight, and I'm still here on your podcast today sharing the story. So maybe I was just chosen for this. And thankfully, something gave me the spirit to keep fighting and stand firm in that.

But I will not lie to anybody that it's easy. Just prepare yourself. But you have to do it, because we lose to evil if we don't.

So, Eric, I want to ask this question, ask this to all my guests. What do you want your legacy to be?

First and foremost, a dad that gave the tools to two youths that will then become adults in this world with the lesson.

So if I've now multiplied one myself into two strong moral characters in this world, that they'll go out and do it for, and through the generations, we will start to take back good versus evil. But as far as me, beyond the dad aspect, I just want to protect our country, and I want to protect what we're founded on.

I mean, ultimately, you know, my case is now at the appellate case or the appellate court. So my case becomes case law, which will then protect future public servants placed into these unique situations, exposing corruption.

And again, it's all a fight of good versus bad. At the end of the day, there's bad actors that are going to do things, and public officials are put in A place of public trust.

And so in that public trust, our duty, first and foremost, is to expose corruption and end it. And so if my legacy can be an appellate court victory, that then protects other public service. I've done my job, and I think that's my sunset.

Continue to share my story afterwards. Maybe politics or something in my future, run for a local office. I don't know that path, but I know that I'll be shown that path. Right.

So I'm just here for the ride.

So, Eric, where can people learn more about your cause and support and tell you about your story as well?

Yeah. So again, justice for Holt, Facebook X and TikTok. Facebook is my most probably active one. So justice for Holt on that. All the videos are up there.

If you actually want to see the evidence, hear the updates, but please do that. I am. This is a very hard thing for me, but I've had to come to the point of, you know, charity.

And so I have a Gibson go and a GoFundMe, which I've given you the links. But it's justice for Health as well.

Right now, financially, that attorney is threatening litigation because on top of the 150 grand, I still owe them like 40, and they're threatening to sue me over that. But if I can relieve that, then all of it just kind of goes to continuing this fight. None of it's to enrich me. I'm blessed.

I'm in a good spot in life even with all of this. So I don't need it. But I do. I can't be sued by the attorneys that I've already paid. That's a rough one.

Well, Eric, thanks so much for sharing your story and keep fighting that good fight. And may God bless you and give you strength on his journey.

Thank you, Keith. I appreciate you. And thank you so much for having me on. Thank you.