Mike Davis changed the Supreme Court. Now he has Colorado officials in his sights.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

On the morning Tina Peters walked out of a Colorado prison, Mike Davis was already filing paperwork.

The referral went to the Department of Justice before the cameras left. 

It named four Colorado officials — Mesa County District Judge Matthew Barrett, Attorney General Phil Weiser, Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, and Secretary of State Jena Griswold — and called on Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to open a federal criminal investigation into the prosecution that put Peters away.

Davis didn’t wait for a press cycle. He didn’t wait for the right moment. “The message had to land while the cameras were still on, while the story was still live,” he told RMV.

That’s how he operates. And on Friday, June 26, he brings that approach to the main stage at RMV’s Freedom Fest at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock.

What he learned in Denver

Before he became a fixture in Washington judicial battles, he spent nearly a decade trying civil cases in Colorado courtrooms. 

He clerked for Neil Gorsuch when Gorsuch was still a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver. He practiced at one of the largest law firms in the world and one of the top-ranked law firms in Colorado. He ran his own firm, MRDLaw, and for four years served concurrently as a Special Assistant Attorney General of Colorado.

He will tell you those years are the point.

“I spent nearly a decade practicing civil litigation in Denver inside real courtrooms, with clients whose businesses and livelihoods were on the line,” Davis said. “That sharpens you in ways that no Senate hearing room ever could. You learn fast that arguments without consequences are just noise. When I went back to Washington, I brought that with me.”

He went back in 2017 to serve as Chief Counsel for Nominations under Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.

Davis served as the Chairman’s staff lead for 30 hearings and 41 markup meetings, and oversaw floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the most bitterly contested Supreme Court battles in memory. 

The New York Times’ Carl Hulse wrote that Davis “is known as a take-no-prisoners conservative eager to challenge the left with hardball tactics,” and that Justice Gorsuch privately called Mr. Davis “the general” of his confirmation while Justice Kavanaugh referred to him as “a warrior” on Kavanaugh’s behalf. Sen. Grassley said Davis was “a critical hand while we were breaking records confirming President Trump’s appeals court judges.”

By the time Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in 2020, A3P says it had helped confirm more than 230 Article III judges, including three constitutionalist Supreme Court justices. 

The organization, which Davis founded after leaving Grassley’s staff in 2019, ran what it describes as the largest grassroots campaigns in Supreme Court history — more than two million citizen contacts pressing senators on those three nominations alone.

Outside by design

After Trump’s 2024 win, Davis’s name circulated for attorney general. He passed.

“Outside, I can say what needs to be said, go after who needs to be gone after, and move faster than any bureaucracy ever will,” Davis said. “The Article III Project exists to hold the line on the federal judiciary and constitutional accountability without asking anyone’s permission. You don’t need a title to file a criminal referral. You don’t need a West Wing badge to expose corrupt officials. You need the facts, the law, and the willingness to pull the trigger.”

His reach inside the administration has not suffered for it. In early 2025, Trump appointed a close Davis ally, Stephen Kenny, to the White House Counsel’s office to work on judicial nominations.

Colorado officials in his sights

In March 2025, Davis made the case publicly in a Denver Post op-ed that Peters’ nine-year sentence was driven by politics, not the charges. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her conviction but ordered her resentenced in April 2026, ruling that Barrett’s judgment was based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech. 

Gov. Jared Polis cited those same concerns when he commuted her sentence in May 2026.

Peters walked free June 1. The federal referral followed the same morning.

The referral invokes 18 U.S.C. § 241 and § 242 — statutes covering conspiracy to violate rights and deprivation of rights under color of law. In the referral letter, Davis argues a criminal investigation is the only way to answer those questions, because judges and prosecutors are absolutely immune civilly under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

“The evidence is clear: Colorado government officials conspired to severely, unconstitutionally, and criminally punish Tina Peters because of her First Amendment-protected views on election integrity,” Davis wrote in the referral letter to Dhillon.

Both Weiser and Griswold publicly opposed the commutation. Davis noted in the referral that Griswold wrote an opinion piece in the Denver Post arguing Peters should have served out her entire sentence in prison. Both are now running for statewide office. Weiser for governor. Griswold for attorney general.

Davis is not done with either of them.

What he’s bringing to Castle Rock

RMV’s Freedom Fest brings speakers from across the country to the Douglas County Fairgrounds on June 26 and 27. Davis speaks on the main stage Friday. 

“I want Colorado conservatives to leave that room understanding that this state is winnable,” Davis told RMV, “and that the people who’ve been running it into the ground have names, and those names are going to keep coming up.”

He once said of his years in Washington: “The problem is that when you stay in D.C. too long you end up in prison.”

He left. He changed the court. He filed the referral. Now he will be in Castle Rock.