Politicians like to trick us by hiding behind their spokespeople and then, if necessary, contradicting whatever their spokesperson said.

Case in point: Mike Coffman.

Yesterday Coffman put out a wishy washy statement about whether he’d support Donald Trump. But back in February, when Coffman himself was dodging reporters’ questions about Trump, Coffman’s spokesperson was adamant that Coffman would back Trump if Trump became the Republican nominee, as quoted by The Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning.

Good reporters won’t let a politician, like Coffman, shove out a new position without, at a minimum, explaining why the new statement contradicts that of his spokesperson.

Case in point: Brandon Rittiman.

He quoted Coffman’s statement about Trump yesterday and noted that it completely contradicted the words of his mouthpiece back in February. From Rittiman’s story:

In a statement, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) said he’s not sold on Trump yet, calling his party’s presumptive presidential nominee “divisive.”

“Trump has a long way to go to earn the support of many – me included,” Coffman wrote.

That statement contradicts what his campaign told the Colorado Statesman in February. The relevant portion of the article (which is behind a paywall) reads as follows:

“Will Mike Coffman support the Republican nominee over Bernie or Hillary?” said [Mike Coffman] campaign spokeswoman Kristin Strohm. “The answer is obviously yes. And he believes strongly it is going to be Marco Rubio.”

Other reporting on Coffman’s Trump statement ignored Strohm’s comment, but I’m sure there will be ample opportunities for reporters to ask Coffman to explain what’s going on here.

In a Facebook post last week, State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Westminster) came out against birthright citizenship, the U.S. policy granting citizenship to people born on American soil, even if their parents are not citizens.

The debate about birthright citizen was largely confined to hard-right conservative circles, until Donald Trump came out against it in August, as part of his immigration platform, sparking high-profile debate among Republican presidential candidates and pundits.

Woods, who has said Trump is her second favorite presidential candidate, “liked” a Facebok post, sponsored by Numbers USA, which read:

LIKE if you agree with Trump. Illegal aliens should not be awarded birthright citizenship!

A graphic shows a photo of Trump with the text, “End Birthright Citizenship.”

Trump’s immigration platform also calls for the rounding up and deportation of  America’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to their country of origin. From there, they’d be free to apply to become U.S. citizens.

Woods’ office did not immediately return a call for comment on whether she agrees with Trump’s immigration policy in its entirety–or whether she’d want to rescind citizenship from millions of immigratns who’ve become U.S. citizens under America’s birthright-citizenship law.

Most other Colorado politicians have been silent on birthright citizenship, but as recently as 2013, Rep. Mike Coffman confirmed his opposition to the policy, in an interview with The Denver Post, saying “sure” he’d like to abolish birthright citizenship.

Back in 2011, Coffman cosponsored a bill that would have abolished birthright citizenship.

Both Woods and Coffman represent swing districts where anti-immigration positions could turn off immigrant voters. About 20 percent of Coffman’s district is Latino.

Woods won her Westminster seat by about 650 votes in 2014, while Coffman has been seen as vulnerable since his district was re-drawn after the 2010 census. Coffman narrowly defeated a Democrat in 2012 and won by a larger margin in 2014.

Last month, Rep. Mike Coffman wrote on Facebook that Obama is the “real recruiting tool” for terrorists, not GITMO.

Coffman: “President Obama wants to close GTMO because he thinks it’s a recruiting tool for terrorists – the real recruiting tool is a President who seems more concerned about protecting the rights of terrorists rather than defeating them and protecting the American people.”[emphasis added]

Yet it flew under the radar of Denver media, and Coffman never apologized for the recruiting tool comment.

But it seems, judging from a KOA interview today, that Coffman himself apparently believes that the comment was wrong.

On KOA this morning, Coffman said:

Coffman: This president refuses to acknowledge that we are a nation at war not of our own choosing and refuses even to identify those who have declared war on us. … He says Guantanamo Bay is a recruiting tool for terrorists. What is a recruiting tool for terrorists is having a commander in chief that projects weakness. [emphasis added]

It’s one thing to say Obama’s policies are a recruiting too. It’s another to write that the President himself is a recruiting tool for terrorists.

Does Coffman really believe that the “real recruiting tool” is the President of the United States?

Last week, the National Review posted a collection of anti-Trump opinion pieces written by conservatives, like Commentary Editor John Podhoretz, who hammered Trump’s “repellent assertion that the first black president needed to prove to Trump’s satisfaction that he was actually an American.”

Podhoretz: The cultural signposts Trump brandished in the years preceding his presidential bid are all manifestations of the American id—his steak business, his casino business, his green-marble-and-chrome architecture, his love life minutely detailed in the columns of Cindy Adams, his involvement with Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire, and his reality-TV persona as the immensely rich guy who treats people like garbage but has no fancy airs. This id found its truest voice in his repellent assertion that the first black president needed to prove to Trump’s satisfaction that he was actually an American.

In any integrated personality, the id is supposed to be balanced by an ego and a superego—by a sense of self that gravitates toward behaving in a mature and responsible way when it comes to serious matters, and, failing that, has a sense of shame about transgressing norms and common decencies. Trump is an unbalanced force. He is the politicized American id.

When Podhoretz is done hitting Trump, he should turn to Rep. Mike Coffman, who infamously wondered in 2012 whether Obama is an American. Coffman’s id was apparently speaking when he said:

Coffman: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”

And then, demonstrating Coffman’s absence of a developed superego, in Podhoretz formulation, Coffman didn’t feel shame for his birther moment in a “mature and responsible way,” offering a scripted and unapologitic apology to 9News Kyle Clark five times in a row.

But, look, it gets worse because Coffman’s id still dominates to this day. This isn’t simply a rehash of one of the stranger apologies in Colorado politics.

Just a couple weeks ago Coffman called Obama a “recruting tool” for terrorists. That’s on the same continuum as his birther comments, which he apologized for.

Coffman: “President Obama wants to close GTMO because he thinks it’s a recruiting tool for terrorists – the real recruiting tool is a President who seems more concerned about protecting the rights of terrorists rather than defeating them and protecting the American people.”

Colffman’s “sense of self” lacks the “sense of shame about transgressing norms and common decencies” that Podhoretz finds absent in Trump.

After President Obama’s State of the Union Address, KOA host April Zesbaugh gave Rep. Mike Coffman another chance to offer a thought or two about Donald Trump, when she pointed out that Obama had talked “little bit about ignoring political hot air, likely a comment about Donald Trump or maybe Ted Cruz.”

Coffman ignored the opening to talk about Trump, making him possibly the only person in America who has nothing to say about the idiotic billionaire. Coffman has now ducked five chances to condemn/praise/parse Trump (See here, here, here, one below, and one above.).

Perhaps the strangest incident occurred in Washington DC after Trump proposed banning Muslims from America. Other Republicans condemned Trump, but Coffman simply told a Roll Call reporter, “I’m not going to go there. Thanks.” (Coffman had issued a statement on the topic that didn’t mention Trump.)

Seriously, how can you not have anything to say about Donald, even if you’re the lowest informaation voter on Earth?

And putting aside the fact that Trump is the leading GOP prez contender, who’s condemned most every swing voter  in Coffman’s district, the Donald is a totally legitimate topic for Coffman to address.

Some of Coffman’s actual factual positions align with Trump’s (against birthright citizenship, in favor of a worker underclass, against raising debt limit in certain circumstances, and more) Coffman should clarify where he stands vis a vis Donald on these issues.

Plus, Trump is politics in its rawest and most accessible form. Why hasn’t Coffman condemned Trump? It’s a serious and puzzling question.

It’s clear now that Coffman will continue to run from Trump questions until a local reporter, who is in a position to have an exchange with Coffman, insists on answers. With Trump surging and the key caucuses and primaries upon us, I’m looking forward to hearing what Coffman says.

Appearing on KOA 850-AM’s Morning News Jan. 13, Rep. Mike Coffman first said he doesn’t “see anything happening on immigration reform” in Congress this year.

Then he told radio host April Zesbaugh, “Certainly, I’ve worked hard in my congressional district to break that narrative” that “Republicans are anti-immigrant.”

So he declares immigration reform dead and says he’s not anti-immigrant.

The irony is, if Coffman and his fellow House Republicans weren’t anti-immigrant, immigration reform wouldn’t be dead right now. It would be moving forward, as laid out in the comprehensive immigration reform bill that Coffman opposed and was killed by House Republicans in 2013.

Millions of law-abiding immigrants would be starting to come out of the shadows and living like my own immigrant grandparents did. They’d be paying more taxes, working their asses off, and no longer living in fear of deportation. We’d be spending tens of billions more on border security and have 20,000 agents on the border, too, fwiw. The Chamber of Commerce would be happy. I would feel proud of our country, not guilty, when I see my daughter’s friend holding hands with her immigrant father.

Coffman would no doubt be standing up his his district and saying he actually accomplished something on immigration. As it is, he’s defined by what he’s not done and what he still opposes: birthright citizenship, bilingual ballots, comprehensive immigration reform, a path to citizenship.

With his Spanish lessons and criss-crossing votes for modest reforms, maybe Coffman has worked hard, in terms of rhetoric and smoke screens and cover up, to create a perception of hard work on  immigration, but he was a roadblock to actually accomplishing anything when it really mattered most.

There’s a local angle on Obama’s comment last night that “some of the only people in America who are going to work the same job, in the same place, with a health and retirement package, for 30 years, are sitting in this chamber. For everyone else, especially folks in their forties and fifties, saving for retirement or bouncing back from job loss has gotten a lot tougher.”

The local connection was sitting in front of Obama in the form of Mike Coffman. He’s part of an even smaller number of people who’ve fought to abolish retirement packages, like the ones Members of Congress get, even though he’s receiving a $55,000 retirement package (from the state of Colorado) while, at the same time, drawing a $174,000 salary as a U.S. Congressman.

As the National Journal’s Shane Goldmacher reported in 2013 when Coffman was urging Members of Congress to give up their pensions:

If there’s one thing I learned in both the United States Army and the Mar­ine Corps about lead­er­ship, it was lead­ing by ex­ample,” Coff­man lec­tured them, point­ing to his chest at a com­mit­tee hear­ing. “Nev­er ask any­one to do any­thing that you your­self would not be will­ing to do.”

What Coff­man left un­said that day in a speech about his bill’s “sym­bol­ic” im­port­ance was that he was col­lect­ing a $55,547 state-gov­ern­ment pen­sion in ad­di­tion to his con­gres­sion­al paycheck. Hav­ing spent two dec­ades as an elec­ted of­fi­cial in Col­or­ado, he has re­ceived re­tire­ment be­ne­fits since 2009, the year he ar­rived in Con­gress.

But, Goldmacher asked Coffman later, doesn’t the Aurora Congressman realize he’s taking a defined-benefit penion, like the one he’s opposing?

“I am,” he told Goldmacher. “I am.”

At the time, I hoped reporters would ask Coffman directly, does Coffman see any hypocrisy in his own actions? And if so, what does he think he should do about it?

No one asked him, but it’s not too late.

In a blog post last year, I showed that Rep. Mike Coffman has voted a total of six times to defund Planned Parenthood, a move that would stop 2,200 low-income women from going to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Coffman’s own Aurora district.

Then last week, Coffman voted again to defund the women’s health organization, but his vote came on an amended version of the same anti-Planned Parenthood bill he voted for in October of last year. I’d counted his October vote as his sixth vote to defund the organization.

If you’re a reporter, and you want to be fair to Coffman, do you count his vote last week as number seven? Or does he remain a six-time voter to defund Planned Parenthood?

To get an impartial opinion, I asked Fred Brown, a former Denver Post editor and political reporter, for his view on whether Coffmn’s vote on the amended bill should be reported as his seventh vote to defund Planned Parenthood. (I asked Brown to assume my tally was correct. I did not ask him to fact check my work, but you can do so here.)

Brown told me he’d count the two votes on the same bill as one vote for my tally, leaving it at six times Coffman has voted to defund.

“If there’s a different bill number, it’s a different vote,” wrote Brown, who’s also a nationally-known expert on journalism ethics.

Rep. Mike Coffman voted again Wednesday to defund Planned Parenthood, voting a second time on a bill to strip funding from the women’s health organization

So you wonder, what does Coffman have to say to the 2,200 women who would no longer be able to go to the Aurora Planned Parenthood clinic if it loses federal money?

We don’t know, because his office won’t return my calls.

You hope Coffman has thought about this, because the clinic currently offers these 2,200 women basic healthcare services like HIV and STD tests, birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings and more, according to a Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado spokeswoman.

And that’s just the Aurora clinic, located in the womb of Coffman’s own district. Across Colorado, if the Aurora Republican has his way, about 80,000 women, men, and young people would lose access to Planned Parenthood health services they rely on if federal funding were lost, says Planned Parenthood in a news release yesterday.

“In his first vote of the year, Rep. Coffman voted to roll back care for millions of patients in this country who rely on compassionate care at Planned Parenthood’s health centers,” said Sarah Taylor-Nanista, PPVC Vice President of Public Affairs in a statement, referring to Coffman’s latest vote for a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, which was vetoed by Obama today. “We need our elected officials to put the health and well being of their constituents first, not sideline good policy for the sake of politics.”

Maybe Coffman has another option in mind for these low-income women on Medicaid and a federal cancer-screening program? Maybe some of them could find alternative to Planned Parenthood? But all of them? And where? How far would they have to travel?

In any case, what’s Coffman’s plan for these women in his district? What does he have to offer them? Or would he prefer to cover up the fact that they exist? Or does he just figure Obama will veto any bill that defunds Planned Parenthood, so Coffman doesn’t have to worry about real-life alternatives?

And will Coffman run his plans, if he has any, by the 2,200 women who now attend the Aurora Planned Parenthood clinic to see how they feel about it?

Coffman won’t tell me. But maybe he’ll take a call from another reporter.

Correction: An early version of this blog post stated that Coffman voted seven times to defund Planned Parenthood. In fact, he voted six times to do so, because two of his seven votes were on the same bill.

Last week’s terrorism at a Planned Parenthood center won’t stop Colorado state Sen. Kevin Lundberg from conducting hearings on the women’s health organization and pushing for a state investigation.

In a Facebook post three days after the shooting, Lundberg wrote he took advantage of a budget hearing to ask Larry Wolk, Colorado’s chief medical officer, why he hasn’t launched an investigation into whether the organization violated state laws relating to fetal-tissue research.

The Durango Herald’s Peter Marcus reported on the incident Tuesday:

Despite the tragedy still fresh for the public and victims’ families, Republicans on Tuesday wasted no time, getting right back to the fetal body parts issue. Remarks came during a budget hearing with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

“Will the department be taking some action to deal with this inadequacy?” asked Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, pointing out that the state health department has taken no action against Planned Parenthood on the fetal body parts issue.

Later, Lundberg wrote on his Facebook page that he has “specific questions” that he intends to ask Wolk during the legislative session, and Wolk ageed to testify.

“I finally had a brief opportunity to question the Colorado Health Department director, Dr. Wolk, concerning his department’s failure to thoroughly investigate possible violations of Colorado law concerning fetal tissue trafficking,” Lundberg wrote on Facebook.

Wolk’s told Lundberg at the hearing that he did not see “any connection to Colorado” in heavily-edited undercover videos, some of which featured Colorado Planned Parenthood officials. And he said he’s always available to answer questions from Lundberg.

“This despite his refusal to come or send anyone from his department to the RSCC Fetal Tissue Trafficking Hearing held on November 9,” Lundberg wrote on Facebook.

Colorado pro-choice activists on Tuesday pointed to the rhetoric at the November 9 hearing, which repeatedly spotlighted the discredited videos, as contributing to the November 27 murders in Colorado Springs. If Wolk refused to testify at the legislature, an angry Lunberg said in a radio interview about the Nov. 9 hearing, he’d consider requesting subpeona power to force him to do so.

As I wrote for RH Reality Check Friday, Lundberg wasn’t named by the activists Tuesday, but they cited his fellow Colorado legislators, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt (R-Colorado Springs), and state Sen. Tim Neville (R-Littleton) for using language that incited violence directed at Planned Parenthood.

The health department has declinedColorado Statesman to investigate Planned Parenthood in Colorado.