Trump administration seeks custody of imprisoned Colorado elections clerk
DENVER (AP) — The Trump administration wants a former Colorado county clerk who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists to be transferred from state prison to federal custody, the state and one of its lawyers said Friday.
The Colorado Department of Corrections said Friday it received a letter from the federal Bureau of Prisons regarding Tina Peters on Wednesday. Neither the department nor the Bureau of Prisons immediately responded to a request to provide a copy of the letter, but Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez confirmed that the letter was a request for Peters to be taken into federal custody.
Peter Ticktin, a member of Peters’ legal team, said he saw the letter and also described it as a request for him to be transferred to a federal prison to serve his sentence there.
“It’s not his release,” he said.
Although Ticktin said the letter did not say why the agency wanted to remove Peters, he said he believed it was because Peters could be more easily involved in investigations into voting machines in the 2020 presidential election and because of health problems he suffered in state prison.
Peters, 70, was convicted of orchestrating a scheme to breach voting machine data in the 2020 election, sparked by unsubstantiated allegations of fraud. His release from prison became a famous case in the world election conspiracy movement.
President Donald Trump and other supporters inside and outside his administration are calling for the release of Peters, who is appealing his conviction. In September, after Peters pleaded with the president to release him ahead of the midterm elections, Trump renewed his call for his release, saying, “We’re going to do something.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said there was no basis for transfer to federal prison and that he would “strongly oppose” any such efforts.
“Any plan to prevent him from being held accountable under Colorado law is outrageous,” Weiser said in a statement.
His office is also opposing Peters’ effort to be released from prison in federal court while an appeal of his state conviction is pending.
Peters is serving a nine-year prison sentence after a jury trial in Mesa County, where he clerked. found him guilty Last year, he allowed someone to gain unauthorized access to the election system he oversaw and deceived other officials about that person’s identity. continued the press Unsubstantiated claims of fraudulent voting machines.
There is no evidence of significant fraud in Colorado’s elections, which have been staunchly defended by the state’s mostly Republican county clerks. Peters was prosecuted by an elected Republican district attorney, and all three administrators in his conservative-leaning county supported the case and defended the integrity of the state’s elections.
