Colorado AG accuses Trump of ‘campaign of retaliation’ for state’s refusal to release convicted election clerk

Colorado’s attorney general accused the Trump administration on Thursday of waging a “retaliation campaign” by choking off funds and ending federal programs over the state’s refusal to heed the Republican president’s demands to release an imprisoned election clerk.

President Donald Trump has unsuccessfully pushed Colorado to release Tina Peters, the former Mesa County elections clerk, who was convicted in state court of orchestrating a data breach scheme driven by false claims of fraud in Trump’s election defeat in 2020. Trump also wants the state to change its mail-in voting system, which he claimed gives an unfair advantage to Democrats.

Read more: Republican election denier Tina Peters sentenced to 9 years in prison over voting data scheme

As Trump’s demands have grown in recent months, federal officials have issued a series of decisions and orders that have negatively impacted Colorado, including dissolving a climate research laboratory, threatening to cut transportation funds, withholding funds from families in need, and moving U.S. Space Command to Alabama.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed a lawsuit against the administration in October seeking to overturn Space Command’s move. On Thursday, the Democrat amended his lawsuit to include other federal changes affecting Colorado — and linked those actions directly to Peters’ imprisonment.

Weiser described it as a “revenge campaign.”

“The purpose is clear: to force Colorado to end mail-in voting and release Tina Peters from prison,” state attorneys said in a filing Thursday. “When threats alone did not work, the Trump administration followed through, using various sanctions against Colorado for exercising its sovereign powers.”

The administration has not yet officially responded to the claims in the lawsuit. A White House spokeswoman declined to specify whether there was any connection between recent federal spending decisions in Colorado and Peters’ case.

Read more: Colorado governor says Trump is playing “political games” by denying disaster declaration request

“President Trump is using his legal authority and discretion to ensure that federal dollars are spent in a manner consistent with the agenda the American people endorsed when they resoundingly re-elected the President,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email.

“Release Tina Peters!” Trump said Thursday in a social media post.

In a December 31 post calling for Peters’ release, Trump referred to Colorado’s Democratic governor as “despicable.” The president also claimed that the state’s mail system “makes it impossible for a Republican to win a winnable state.”

Experts said Colorado’s mail system is safe, secure and legal, and that mail-in voting gives neither party an advantage.

Last month, Trump issued a symbolic pardon for Peters. His pardon power does not extend to state crimes like the one for which Peters was convicted last year and sentenced to nine years in prison.

But the move highlighted Trump’s ongoing efforts to recast the 2020 election as stolen from him, even though courts across the country and Trump’s attorney general at the time found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome.

He watches: Trump’s attempt to pardon Tina Peters falls within constitutional limits

Weiser’s lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge R. Brock Jackson in Denver to declare that Colorado has been subjected to unfair sanctions by the administration in violation of the Constitution’s guarantees of state sovereignty.

“I realize that this is a new request, because this is an unprecedented administration,” Weiser said during a press conference. “We have never seen an administration act in a way that so blatantly violates the Constitution and disrespects the sovereign authority of the state.”

Peters is asking the state Court of Appeals to recognize the validity of Trump’s pardon. Her lawyers are scheduled to appear in court next week as they seek to overturn her conviction.