{"id":15540,"date":"2025-11-21T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T23:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/prosecutor-attorney-general-urge-gov-polis-to-ignore-requests-to-aid-tina-peters\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:34:19","slug":"prosecutor-attorney-general-urge-gov-polis-to-ignore-requests-to-aid-tina-peters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/prosecutor-attorney-general-urge-gov-polis-to-ignore-requests-to-aid-tina-peters\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutor, attorney general urge Gov. Polis to ignore requests to aid Tina Peters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Former
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters leaving her arraignment in 2022 in Grand Junction. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

They are urging Democratic Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 administration to keep Peters in state custody and worry moving her to federal custody to a lower level of supervision would allow her to \u201ccontinue disseminating the same false narratives that have already endangered clerks throughout Colorado and across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Dominion voting machines in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cShifting her custody to the federal government is an attempt to bypass our judicial system \u2013 all to offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence,\u201d wrote Dan Rubinstein, the district attorney in Mesa county, a Republican; and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, in the letter to Polis.<\/p>\n

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, also urged Polis to deny the transfer request.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing Trump\u2019s transfer of Tina Peters would supercharge Trump\u2019s attempts to rewrite history and disseminate election lies. It would also undermine our efforts to enforce the law and protect Colorado elections,\u201d Griswold said.<\/p>\n

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 multistep process to formally approve the transfer of an incarcerated individual to another jurisdiction, including a multi-disciplinary assessment, and that it can\u2019t be initiated by an outside entity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis process is typically reserved for complex cases involving significant, long-term safety and security needs,\u201d said a DOC spokesperson.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 actions as she continued to push false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cClerks across Colorado stepped forward to explain the truth: The systems had worked, the safeguards had worked, and Ms. Peters\u2019 claims were not accurate,\u201d states a letter from the clerks to Polis. \u201cFor doing so, many clerks and their families, including their children, were subjected to harassment, intimidation and threats, some credible enough to involve law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

He said Peters is being targeted, as are other Trump supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cTina Peters is a proud American, and she\u2019s not embarrassed or ashamed in any way. She\u2019s proud of what she\u2019s done because she\u2019s not a criminal,\u201d Ticktin said. \u201cShe\u2019s just a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s office has received a flood of requests to pardon Peters, but not from her legal team, who said such a request would be \u201cfutile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis has said he would give a pardon request for Peters 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a past version of America, people have gone to jail for that,\u201d Polis told Colorado Matters Senior Host Ryan Warner during an interview in Grand Junction earlier this fall.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn outcome that would not be surprising given the many statements made by federal officials and the President calling for Ms. Peters\u2019 release,\u201d said the letter from Weiser and Rubinstein to Gov. Polis. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters leaving her arraignment in 2022 in Grand Junction. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News) They are urging Democratic Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 administration to keep Peters in state custody and worry moving her to federal custody to a lower level of supervision would allow her to \u201ccontinue disseminating the same false narratives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,133,266,819,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-courts","tag-election","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19711,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540\/revisions\/19711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15540"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}