Officials from across Colorado’s political spectrum are urging Governor Jared Polis to deny a request from President Donald Trump’s administration to transfer former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters from state prison to federal custody.

The Colorado Department of Corrections said last week that it had received a formal request on Nov. 12 from the Federal Bureau of Prisons seeking the transfer of Peters, who is serving a nine-year prison sentence for her role in a breach of her office’s election systems, part of an attempt to find evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The request came amid mounting pressure from Trump, U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and other far-right figures in the election conspiracy theory movement who have called for Peters’ release.

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In a letter to Polis on Friday, the Colorado County Clerks Association warned that agreeing to the request “would send a deeply damaging message” to the local officials who oversee elections in the state’s 64 counties.

“We are deeply concerned that, if transferred, Ms. Peters would continue disseminating the same false narratives that have already endangered clerks throughout Colorado and across the country,” the clerks wrote. “Her pattern of knowingly repeating false claims, long after they were disproven, has fueled harassment, threats, and intimidation against the very officials who protected the integrity of our elections.”

“The risks to these public servants would only grow if she were allowed to use a new legal narrative to further these falsehoods,” the letter adds.

Peters is serving her sentence in a state prison in Pueblo after being convicted of multiple felony counts in connection with her role in breaching Mesa County’s elections systems during a 2021 software security update. Calls for her release by far-right figures have intensified this month following the sweeping pardons that Trump granted to dozens of peopleinvolved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election through “fake electors” schemes and other means.

Claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent or compromised have been debunked by elections officials, experts, media investigations, law enforcement, the courts and Trump’s own campaign and administration officials.

We are deeply concerned that, if transferred, Ms. Peters would continue disseminating the same false narratives that have already endangered clerks throughout Colorado and across the country.

The clerks association, made up of Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated officials, called on Polis to show “courage” in denying the request, and asked to meet personally with the governor before he makes his decision.

“We expect that you will meet personally with Colorado’s clerks before any final decision is made,” the clerks wrote to Polis. “This personal meeting is crucial to ensure that the voices of those who bore the brunt of these events are fully heard.”

Asked about the clerks’ request, a spokesperson for Polis didn’t provide comment for this story before publication.

Violation of public trust

Trump does not have the power to pardon Peters, who was convicted on state charges. The formal BOP request reportedly came at the direction of the Office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. A partially redacted copy of the email shared by far-right media outlets, which Newsline has not independently verified, showed an unidentified DOJ official ordering the BOP to “explore any and all avenues within BOP’s authority to seek and request” Peters’ transfer to a federal facility. In a Nov. 10 interview with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, Martin said that the transfer request would “put the right kind of pressure on” state officials.

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Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican who prosecuted the Peters case, have also urged Polis to deny the BOP request. In a joint letter Thursday, they emphasized that Peters’ prosecution was supported by all three of Mesa County’s Republican commissioners and that she was indicted and convicted by juries of her peers, from a community “long recognized for its deep conservative values.”

“Put simply, Ms. Peters is in prison today due to the crimes she committed that put Mesa’s election systems at risk and violated the public’s trust, and for no other reason,” Weiser and Rubinstein wrote. “Her prosecution and sentencing were done with the utmost professionalism and respect for the rule of law, demonstrating how our criminal justice system should always work.”

The outcome of Peters’ transfer to federal custody, the letter adds, would be at best to circumvent Colorado’s criminal justice system in order to give her “preferential treatment,” and at worst to aid her “unauthorized or illegal release.”

“The State of Colorado should not be complicit in either such arrangement,” said Weiser and Rubinstein. “Failing to meet that principle will further strain confidence in our judicial process and embolden those lawbreakers that believe they can evade justice through political connections and pressure.”