Mercy For Mine: Boebert Begs A Judge To Go Easy On Her Son, Twice In A Week

Politics has a way of testing whether your principles survive contact with your own family. Lauren Boebert just failed the test in open court. Twice.

For the second time in a single week, the Colorado Republican urged a judge to show mercy for her eldest son as he was sentenced Thursday, asking District Judge Elise Myer in Garfield County to let Tyler Boebert, 21, serve any jail time alongside a 20-day sentence he received in a Weld County case the week before. Her pitch to the bench was maternal, not legal. "He needs to be present for his son and provide for him," said Boebert, who said she was speaking as a mother and grandmother.

Here is the arithmetic she was pleading against. Tyler Boebert was sentenced to one year of probation and 20 days in jail in Weld County for one count of child abuse that didn't cause injury, after his toddler son twice wandered out of the home; he was charged in that case while on probation in a Garfield County matter where he was accused of using credit cards stolen from cars, having pleaded guilty in 2024 to attempted identity theft, a felony, under a deal that would have erased the conviction if he stayed out of trouble. He didn't. Prosecutors asked for an actual prison sentence; instead he got 20 days, even though a Class 5 felony in Colorado can carry one to three years and a fine up to $100,000.

And there is worse hanging over the docket. Tyler Boebert has also been charged in Garfield County with sexual exploitation of a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly making and sharing video footage of him having sex with a 17-year-old girl when he was 18. Those are allegations, and he is presumed innocent on them. But they are not nothing, and they sat in the background as his mother asked a judge for grace.

The words were the tell. At the first hearing, the congresswoman told the court, "Mercy is not softness," and "Mercy is the difference between correcting a father and orphaning a son during his most important hours." Lovely. This is the same Boebert whose whole brand is the boot on the neck of the accused, the politician who has talked about sentencing being too soft in the past. Mercy for mine, the maximum for thee. The hypocrisy writes itself.

Meanwhile the incumbent is running the standard incumbent playbook to change the subject. This week she published a Daily Caller op-ed against surveillance cameras, warning that fixed license plate reader cameras are quietly turning American streets into zones of constant monitoring, continuously scanning and recording plates and logging time, location, and travel patterns. A civil-liberties turn is not the worst instinct she has ever had. It is also a convenient thing to talk about when the family courthouse keeps making headlines.

All of it lands in the middle of a campaign. Boebert is running against retired Navy Rear Admiral Eileen Laubacher in the 4th District, which stretches across the Eastern Plains and includes Douglas County. Voters who want to see who is bankrolling that fight, and the itemized FEC totals behind it, can check the verified race page for CO-04.

Mercy is not softness, the congresswoman said. Fine. Neither is accountability. MUCK YOU.