Colorado attorney general, Mesa County prosecutor urge Gov. Polis not to transfer Tina Peters

The district attorney who prosecuted Tina Peters urged Gov Jared Polis on Thursday to reject the Trump administration s effort to transfer the former Mesa County clerk into federal custody where he warned she may be illegally issued Put entirely Ms Peters is in prison at present due to the crimes she committed that put Mesa s voting systems at vulnerability and violated the inhabitants s trust and for no other reason Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and Attorney General Phil Weiser recounted Polis in a joint letter that also called the transfer request a transparent attempt to go around the president s inability to pardon Ms Peters or commute her sentence The letter comes a week after the federal Bureau of Prisons appealed the state Department of Corrections to transfer Peters into federal custody Peters who was sentenced to nine years incarceration last year has repeatedly been defended by President Donald Trump who has called for her release The president cannot pardon Peters who embraced his baseless poll conspiracies because she was charged and convicted in state not federal court Related Articles Trump personnel seek to transfer Tina Peters from Colorado prison to federal custody With no juggernaut in the field Colorado Republicans and counting line up for governor s race Earlier this week Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman did not directly respond when sought if Polis was involved in the decision to transfer Peters if he supported the request or if he had otherwise been contacted by the federal regime about it Wieman instead deferred comment on the transfer request to the Department of Corrections A spokeswoman for that agency has disclosed that the prison bureau s request is under review But Weiser and Rubinstein s letter is addressed to Polis not state prison functionaries The two men wrote that at best the prison bureau s request was intended to sidestep Colorado s judicial system to offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence At worst they alleged this custody request could aid the unauthorized or illegal release of a convicted felon by the federal administration Natalie Baldassarre spokeswoman for the U S Department of Justice also declined to comment earlier this week On Trump ally Steve Bannon s podcast Ed Martin the agency s pardon attorney commented the federal ruling body has to work with Colorado to secure Peters s release He also communicated Bannon that federal representatives were putting the right kind of pressure on the state to make Colorado functionaries change their tune according to CNN Polis has previously revealed he would not pardon Peters as part of a deal with the federal leadership and Wieman noted this week that the governor takes clemency very seriously and reviews each application individually Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter The Spot