Senator Glenneda Zuiderveld Doubles Down on Doxxing
Senator Glenneda Zuiderveld Doubles Down on Doxxing
Is your family safe from the threat of targeted harassment by those who claim to protect children?
A few months ago, the Gem State Substack presented Idaho State Senator Glenneda Zuiderveld with the “2023 Stateswoman of the Year” award for her efforts “exposing malfeasance in the state bureaucracy” and “standing up to establishment bullies.”
What is the Gem State Substack? Well, it’s a blog run by former Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) communications director Brian Almon, who quietly exited the organization to run this little-known blog. And what about that award for standing up to the establishment bullies? As far as I can tell, he just made up something to reward Sen. Zuiderveld’s behavior.
Like many loyalists found sucking up to the RINO smashing organization that recently got caught hiring a known white supremacist, Zuiderveld is keen on attacking anyone seen as a threat to their tight-knit circle of self-identifying “true conservatives.” So when she goes after an accomplished woman who was invited to share her expertise on what is happening with North Idaho College to a group of Republicans in Twin Falls, she gets a well-earned pat on the back from the IFF’s former golden boy.
So, what exactly did Zuiderveld do to earn such high praise from Brian Almon?
On November 29, 2023, Zuiderveld received a forwarded text about a private Truth in Politics event and chose to show up with a few of her loyal friends. On her blog, she said, “After making small talk, I sat down next to my husband, Tom, waiting for the speaker to begin, when Larry Hollifield approached me and told me, ‘This is an invite-only event, and you are not invited.’ Sitting there, looking up at him, I thought he was being sarcastic. Then I realized he was serious, so I asked him why and if it was a secret meeting, to which he replied, yes.”
How embarrassing for her.
Zuiderveld likely knew she was attending in bad faith as she also said, “It is always a bit awkward attending these events because I know I am merely tolerated, so I didn’t pay much attention to the awkward looks.”
Instead of apologizing and quietly leaving like any adult who made an honest mistake would, she chose to behave like a teenage schoolgirl and livestream her performative reaction, naming everyone in the room she could, and attacking the presenter who was there to discuss what was happening at North Idaho College.
A few days later, she doubled down and wrote a lengthy rant targeting the event speaker. In her blog post, she said: “One of the main speakers for this event was Christa Hazel, a woman from North Idaho” and, “I shared some things people had told me about her, her background, and her positions. Her speech in Twin Falls was advertised as a warning about certain people and groups in Idaho, so I thought it important to learn a little bit about her as well.”
This may seem like typical behavior of radicals who call themselves conservatives, adhering to the confrontational politics playbook of naming and shaming those they have targeted for harassment because they have spoken out about their abusive tactics.
Zuiderveld took things too far, putting a dangerous target on Hazel and her family.
In Zuiderveld’s Substack post, she included what looked like a professionally sourced document containing the following information about Hazel:
Private home address
Telephone number
Names of Hazel’s children
Specific details from Hazel’s sealed adoption records
Information about her husband and his employment
Dishonest claims about her father, a retired federal law enforcement officer
This collection of information Zuiderveld added to her substack blog post contained a gold mine of information that could be used by identity thieves and potentially cause significant financial harm. This non-consensual release of Hazel’s private information is called doxxing.
Zuiderveld and her friends celebrate fringe anti-government folk heroes like Randy Weaver, the central figure in the Ruby Ridge standoff back in 1992. To them, anyone from the government associated with Ruby Ridge is their enemy, and Zuiderveld made a point of sharing a document that listed Hazel’s father as participating in the standoff. While he was the FBI agent photographed taking Weaver into custody, he was not part of the standoff, nor had anything to do with the deaths of Weaver’s wife and son.
It appears to me that Zuiderveld shared this information with reckless disregard for the safety of Hazel’s children and exposed private information of someone many far-right extremists have been told is an enemy to their group of “true conservatives.”
Hazel did what any mother would do to protect her family in this situation: she contacted a lawyer and demanded that Zuiderveld remove this dangerous content from her blog. Once again, instead of behaving like a reasonable adult and apologizing for her dangerous behavior, Zuiderveld doubled down and played the victim, claiming Hazel was engaged in “lawfare,” which, as she claims, is “the threat of lawsuits to attack, intimidate, or outright silence your political opponents.”
The disturbing content remained up until Substack removed it after finding that it violated their terms and conditions for disclosing the personal information of others without consent.
This follows a dangerous trend by Idaho Freedom Foundation-linked candidates and campaign operatives
Late last year, Dustin Hurst, the former Vice President of the Idaho Freedom Foundation and current “Pointman” for Money Metals, Idaho Freedom PAC, and YAL, shared my home address and personal information without consent. He and his fellow “Freedom Bro” Greg Pruett of the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance threatened to show up at my house, and they even traveled to my area and posted about the possibility of stopping by while they were in town. This implied a physical threat to my family.
I spoke to a local prosecutor, multiple members of law enforcement, and my attorney and decided the best course of action to protect my family was to request a stalking injunction. After a hearing and thorough review of the offending actions, the judge granted me a three-year civil stalking injunction against my stalker and declared that there was enough evidence that Dustin Hurst had, in fact, engaged in stalking.
In late January of this year, we discovered my 17-year-old son had a critical brain tumor. We rushed him to Primary Children’s Hospital and got him emergency brain surgery to remove the tumor that was connected to his brain stem and cortex. It was a very difficult moment that no parent or child should ever face.
While we were in the hospital waiting for the surgery, Dustin Hurst posted a vicious lie about texts to his wife. He threatened to “destroy me” and that he was going to have the police show up while I was at the hospital. He knew what was happening to my family and used our family crisis as an opportunity to increase the emotional distress I was already under. I was forced to get a lawyer to send my stalker a cease and desist letter to stop him from causing further harm through his highly defamatory claim. Hurst’s claims are verifiably false and may land him in further legal hot water under Idaho’s defamation per se laws.
This ghoulish behavior was amplified by the Idaho Freedom Foundation troll network, the same group that celebrated Sen. Zuiderveld’s doxxing of Hazel’s kids.
My son’s tumor continued to spread, and we are anxiously awaiting the results of his six weeks of targeted radiation treatments.
With everything going on with my family, the targeted harassment continued, and dishonest content was published suggesting I was dangerously unhinged, mentally deranged, and posed a threat to them. This only proved the necessity of getting a stalking injunction against those who might threaten my family.
These lies, similar to those published by Zuiderveld, are designed to convince their followers that those who speak out about their abusive behavior deserve to be harassed or even targeted for violence by others. It’s dangerous content aimed at their audience, which includes members of Ammon Bundy’s Peoples Rights Network and cosplay paramilitary groups like the Idaho Liberty Dogs.
Many members of Bundy’s group have faced charges for showing up at the homes of people targeted through content like this, and one member, Sean Anderson, ended up in a gunfight with the police and is currently serving a long prison sentence for his violent actions.
Followers of the Idaho Freedom Foundation have used information from doxxing to target specific individuals in the past.
In April 2020, dozens of people showed up at the home of a Meridian law enforcement officer after he complied with Sara Walton Brady’s request to be arrested for her staged playground protest. An Idaho Freedom Foundation employee posted the name and photo of the officer on social media before the protest.
In December 2020, former Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo’s home was targeted by the same group of IFF supporters. While she was not home at the time, she said, “that the ‘armed protesters’” were outside her home “yelling, banging, firing air horns, amplifying sound clips from Scarface, accusing me of tyranny and cowering inside.” While she was not home at the time, her two sons aged 12 and 8, were and they called her in tears after being terrorized by the nasty behavior of the protesters.
In February 2021, a similar group of far-right protesters showed up outside the home of former Rep. Greg Chaney after he co-sponsored a bill that would make it unlawful to protest outside the homes of elected officials.
In March 2022, Ammon Bundy, who was endorsed by Idaho Freedom Action (IFF-aligned PAC) for Governor, encouraged far-right supporters to show up at a judge’s home and engaged in doxxing healthcare workers during his St. Luke’s Hospital fight.
This is not the first time a sitting Idaho State Legislator has engaged in this kind of reckless behavior. Disgraced former Representative Priscilla Giddings was brought up on ethics charges for conduct unbecoming after she maliciously doxxed the 19-year-old legislative intern who was raped by Gidding’s liberty caucus friend, Aaron von Ehlinger. Like Zuiderveld, Giddings doubled down and played the part of the victim, claiming that somehow she was being attacked for being a “true conservative.” She even attempted to fundraise for a legal defense fund on Anedot, until they shut down her account, as fundraising off the doxxing of a rape victim violated their terms and conditions.
I believe it’s fair to say that if someone had shared information like this about Sen. Tammy Nichol’s children by an IACI-endorsed legislator, there would be non-stop calls for their removal and well-deserved outrage. When Zuiderveld does this, she is given an award for her bravery by the Idaho liberty hive mind.
Those who claim the mantle of “true conservatives” in lieu of the Republican brand don’t care who gets hurt so long as they get their narrative.
Christa Hazel had nothing to do with the request for Zuiderveld to leave the private event. The likely reason she was targeted for harassment is her work in exposing the corruption and attempts by KCRCC-backed North Idaho College trustees to destroy the beloved school. Hazel has the courage to stand up to far-right bullies and deserves our support. Our collective silence only encourages further bad behavior–allowing these patterns to continue.
Sen. Zuiderveld’s reckless disregard for the safety of Hazel’s family and her refusal to make things right are, in my opinion, conduct unbecoming of an Idaho State Senator.
If someone published the names of your children and private home address in an effort to target you for harassment, would you tolerate it?
Would you want to protect your innocent kids?
Would you want that private information available to bad actors who might engage in identity theft and set up fake dating profiles to hurt you?
We must do a better job of carefully vetting the ones we elect into office. We can not trust groups like the Idaho Freedom Foundation and their cohorts to be honest about the candidates who have pledged their loyalty to them, not the voters.
Disclaimer: The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in the exercise of their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding—are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.
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