Trump administration seeks custody of imprisoned Colorado elections clerk

DENVER (AP) — The Trump administration is seeking a transfer from state prison to federal custody of a former Colorado county clerk who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists, the state and one of her lawyers said Friday.

The Colorado Department of Corrections said Friday that 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 a corrections department spokesperson, Alondra Gonzalez, confirmed the letter was a request to move Peters to federal custody.

A member of Peters’ legal team, Peter Ticktin, said he had seen the letter and also described it as a request to move her to a federal prison to serve out her sentence there.

“It is not to have her released,” he said.

While Ticktin said the letter didn’t say why the agency wanted to move Peters, he believes it is so she could more easily be involved in investigations into voting machines in the 2020 presidential election and because of health problems she has been having in state prison.

Peters, 70, was convicted of orchestrating a scheme to breach voting machine data driven by false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Her release from prison has become a cause celebre in the election conspiracy movement.

President Donald Trump and other supporters inside and outside his administration have been urging that Peters be freed as she appeals her conviction. In September, after Peters pleaded for the president to release her ahead of the midterm elections, Trump renewed his call for her to be freed, saying “We’re going to do something.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said there was no basis for a transfer to federal prison and said he would “strongly oppose” any such efforts.

“Any scheme to prevent her from being held accountable under Colorado law is outrageous,” Weiser said in a statement.

His office is also opposing an effort by Peters in federal court seeking to be released from prison while the appeal of her state conviction plays out.

Peters is serving a nine-year sentence after a jury in Mesa County, where she had served as clerk, found her guilty last year of allowing someone to gain unauthorized access to the election system she oversaw and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity. She has continued to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines.

There is no evidence of any significant cheating in Colorado elections, which have been staunchly defended by the state’s county clerks, most of whom are Republican. Peters was prosecuted by an elected Republican district attorney, and the three supervisors in her conservative-leaning county also supported the case and defended the integrity of the state’s elections.