Denver — The Trump administration is seeking to transfer from state prison to federal custody a former Colorado county clerk who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists, 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 about Tina Peters on Wednesday. Neither the department nor the Bureau of Prisons immediately responded to a request for a copy of the letter, but Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez confirmed that the letter was a request to transfer Peters to federal custody.
Peter Ticktin, a member of Peters’ legal team, said he saw the letter and also described it as a request to transfer her to a federal prison to serve her sentence there.
“Not to release her,” he said.
While Ticktin said the letter did not say why the agency wanted to transfer Peters, he believed it was so she could more easily participate in investigations into voting machines in the 2020 presidential election and because of health issues she was experiencing in state prison.
Peters, 70, was convicted of masterminding a scheme to hack voting machine data based on false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Her release from prison became a cause célèbre in Election conspiracy movement.
President Donald Trump and other supporters inside and outside his administration have urged Peters to be released as she appeals her conviction. In September, after Peters asked the president to release her before the midterm elections, Trump renewed his call for her release, saying: “We will do something.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said there was no basis to transfer him 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 Peters’ efforts in federal court seeking her release from prison while she appeals her state conviction.
Peters is serving a nine-year prison sentence before a jury in Mesa County, where she worked as a clerk. I found her guilty Last year by allowing someone unauthorized access to the election system I oversaw and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity. I kept pushing Discredited claims about rigged voting machines.
There is no evidence of any significant fraud in Colorado’s elections, which were vigorously defended by the state’s county clerks, most of whom are Republicans. Peters was prosecuted by the 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.