A request from the Trump administration to transfer former Republican Mesa County clerk Tina Peters from state to federal custody is opposed by state officials including the Republican district attorney who prosecuted the case and clerks across Colorado from both political parties.
They are urging Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ administration to keep Peters in state custody and worry moving her to federal custody to a lower level of supervision would allow her to “continue disseminating the same false narratives that have already endangered clerks throughout Colorado and across the country.”
Peters is currently incarcerated at the La Vista Correctional Facility, a medium-security facility for women located in Pueblo. In 2024, a state judge sentenced Peters to nine years in prison and jail, after she was found guilty of several felonies stemming from her efforts to help a man gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion voting machines in 2021.
“Shifting her custody to the federal government is an attempt to bypass our judicial system—all to offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence,” wrote Dan Rubinstein, the district attorney in Mesa county, a Republican; and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, in the letter to Polis.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, also urged Polis to deny the transfer request.
“Allowing Trump’s transfer of Tina Peters would supercharge Trump’s attempts to re-write history and disseminate election lies. It would also undermine our efforts to enforce the law and protect Colorado elections,” said Griswold.
The Colorado Department of Corrections confirmed to CPR News last week that it received a letter from the federal Bureau of Prisons regarding Peters. The department said there is a multi-step process to formally approve the transfer of an incarcerated individual to another jurisdiction, including a multi-disciplinary assessment, and that it can’t be initiated by an outside entity.
“This process is typically reserved for complex cases involving significant, long-term safety and security needs,” said a DOC spokesperson.
The Colorado county clerks association is also putting pressure on Polis to keep Peters where she is and has requested an in person meeting with the governor before he makes a final decision. They said they want Polis to hear directly from the election officials who experienced the consequences of Ms. Peters’ actions as she continued to push false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump.
“Clerks across Colorado stepped forward to explain the truth: the systems had worked, the safeguards had worked, and Ms. Peters’ claims were not accurate,” states a letter from the clerks to Polis. “For doing so, many clerks and their families, including their children, were subjected to harassment, intimidation, and threats, some credible enough to involve law enforcement.”
Peters’ lead attorney, Peter Ticktin, recently told CPR News he is advocating to get her moved to a federal facility because he has long-term safety concerns about her current situation. Her attorneys have also filed a federal habeas petition to ask a federal judge to release her on bond while she appeals her state conviction.
He said Peters is being targeted, as are other Trump supporters.
“Tina Peters is a proud American, and she's not embarrassed or ashamed in any way. She's proud of what she's done because she's not a criminal,” Ticktin said. “She's just a good person.”
President Trump has also advocated for her release, but because Peters received a state conviction, Trump cannot pardon her or commute her sentence. That authority resides with Polis. The Governor’s office has received a flood of requests to pardon Peters, but not from her legal team, who said such a request would be “futile.”
Polis has said he would give a Peters pardon request the same consideration that he would any other, though he has also said he would not grant clemency in exchange for favorable treatment from the White House.
“In a past version of America, people have gone to jail for that,” Polis told Colorado Matters Senior Host Ryan Warner during an interview in Grand Junction earlier this fall.
But some state officials are concerned a move to federal custody could lead to the same outcome. They worry a federal prison could release Peters without authorization.
“An outcome that would not be surprising given the many statements made by federal officials and the President calling for Ms. Peters’ release,” said the letter from Weiser and Rubinstein to Governor Polis. “The State of Colorado should not be complicit in either such arrangement. 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.”
