Convicted felon, sexual abuser and President Donald Trump is demanding Colorado release convicted felon and former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from her 9 year prison sentence. The Sentinel’s headline about the demand portrays the matter as a “state vs. federal conflict,” but there really is no conflict at all. Trump has exactly zero legal authority to direct how Colorado handles any aspect of Tina Peters’ case since she was tried and convicted on state, and not federal charges.
The Sentinel consulted Ian Ferrell, an associate professor at the University of Denver Sturm School of Law, who specializes in criminal and constitutional law, about the validity of Trump’s demands. Ferrell called Trump’s statements “all hot air.”
A more accurate headline might have indicated that Trump’s demand amounts to authoritarian overreach by the executive, as well as being an uneducated and misguided effort to illicitly meddle in Colorado’s affairs.
The article also failed to convey more about the fuller context in which Trump issued his demand.
Since being inaugurated president, Trump has been on a lawless authoritarian rampage. He’s been working to turn the United States into a dictatorship by bypassing Congress and pumping out a record 145 executive orders that he’s been wielding like kingly decrees, rather than working with Congress to introduce and pass legislation to achieve his goals, the way policy has typically been made in a democracy. His actions have include dismantling and defunding federal agencies without first getting the legally-required approval of Congress, he has conducted an illegal mass-firing of inspectors general who protect the public interest, he has been using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) like a gestapo, having them kidnap people off the streets of the U.S. — often people with no criminal records — detaining them and sending them to foreign prisons without any notice or due process. He has been declaring fake “emergencies” as a way to seize more executive power than he is entitled to; he’s been issuing executive orders to eliminate entire parts of the U.S. Constitution, and he’s been using his position to punish and extort and hundreds of millions of dollars in favors from private law firms that have represented his critics. He’s been using his position to attempt to extort private universities into adhering to his personal political views in what they teach and who they hire; he’s been using his position to enrich himself personally by selling meme coins (video) and charging people millions for access to him, and he’s been creating Trump-branded cryptocurrencies to enrich himself that are an open conduit for foreign bribes and corruption and more.
Republicans have been pushing Trump to extort Colorado over Tina’s incarceration
Members of the Colorado Republican Party have been pushing Trump to withhold federal funds from Colorado unless Governor Polis pardons Tina.
So far, Tina has not applied for a pardon, and Governor Polis has said he will not yield to blackmail. In a statement, Polis said,
“Quid pro quo or blackmail is not the way our system of laws work. Coloradans are federal taxpayers,” the statement said. “It’s repugnant to demand to withhold taxpayer money in exchange for a political favor.”
There are certian times I remember as clarifying. One was when Harry Reid admitted that he lied about Romney not paying his taxes. He followed that with “well, he didn’t win, did he?”
And we all just went about our business. No outrage, especially from the dems.
That is one of the reasons I laugh at the current outrage about Trump. You dems didn’t care that Biden was corrupt and senile as long as you were in power. But now that someone else is in power you have all become hand-wringers. It’s so disingenuous and comical.
Jefferson is said to have stated that we get the government we deserve. All that is happening now is a result of the thousands of things that have happened before this. It is endlessly fascinating if we don’t end up blowing ourselves up.
There was no outrage because you Republicans could never come up with any actual evidence of corruption or senility. Accusations aren’t enough.
Remember when Biden’s son got 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia? No, you don’t because it was Trump’s son-in-law.
Remember when Biden went golfing at his own resort and charged the Secret Service higher than standard rates for the facilities they used? No, you don’t because that was Trump.
Remember when the Republicans held seven investigations into Hilary Clinton’s e-mails and found all the evidence of wrong-doing? No, you don’t because they found nothing.
Remember when Biden fired the Attorneys General that were investigating him or his companies? No, you don’t because that was Trump.
Accusations from the right mean nothing, because they fail to back them up with evidence every time. But you believe it every time, and that’s why I call you gullible. You believe what you want to believe, no matter that there is no actual evidence of it. Trump is the most corrupt President we have ever had, and you ignore it completely. My bet is that you never even hear about it because your news sources won’t report it. You’re a rube, harry. A useful idiot who will believe what they tell you without question. You prove it over and over.
Harry – it is not about Dems losing the election. It is about THIS man Trump! The constant lying, crimes, ego, lack of diplomacy, disregard for law, and overall ineptness/incompetence is unbelievable! How can you support such a leader?
Calm down!
Any of Trump’s executive orders can be challenged in court.
The only way Trump has any power over private universities is because they get taxpayer funding. That’s why places like Hillsdale College don’t take the money. NPR is vulnerable because they are taxpayer funded. I imagine all of these issues are going to end up in the Supreme Court eventually.
They’re going to be very busy.
I’m still looking for news about the civil rights division of the DOJ looking into the Peters’ prosecution.
Hameet Dhillon is a smart cookie and she will be fair. I’d love to see her take on Barrett and Rubenstein.
But it won’t have the force of law…more like an inspector general report.
CHallenged in court? Like the unanimous Supreme Court decision to return Abrego Garcia?
You can challenge them all day long, and win. But if he ignores them, what else is there? Your hero is a dicator.
From what I have read, they were ordered to facilitate, which they say they have done. They know how to play the game and I would venture to say they learned that from the left. “It depends on what is is.” It’s not so much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it? Gone are the days of good faith actors. Politics have taken over.
I know you think it’s clever to say Trump is my hero, but you are wrong. I see him as a disruptor and in my opinion, there are hundreds if things that need disrupting.
What did they say they did? Trump sat with the president of El Salvador and laughed while Bukele refused to release him. Trump did nothing, and the Republicans let him get away with defying the Supreme Court. And you’;re fine with it because you “read” that he tried. You give up pretty easily when you’re not the one being sent to a foreign prison without being convicted of a crime. Funny how you keep forgetting that.
You nor I know where Garcia is at the moment. The last thing I witnessed was lunch with VanHollen.
Garcia was fine with manipulating the government about his being in the US. He never imagined that it could come back to bite him. He is a person who is used to this kind of chaos and he is hardly just a Maryland man.
One thing I do know is he entered the country illegally. I think it would be great if he were just let free in El Salvador.
And maybe, this will be a cautionary tale to all of those loophole lawyers and judges that they should be more careful when they assust people in skirting the law.
A senator saw him in the prison. We know where he is, and we know he was never convicted of a crime, but you’re okay with leaving him there. Got it.
Jackpot ! I can argue against both Badhat and Scott.
Badhat, it does not make sense to approve of Authoritarian behavior because anything unconstitutional can be challenged it in court. Like me, you state that the immigration court system is slow and dysfunctional because of frivolous arguments and judge shopping.
At the end of the day, this is blackmail in the least. And I suppose that he will use DOGE to simply reduce and reallocate former Dept. of Ed. funds. Strange. He has the Zionist community behind him on the Columbia and Harvard battles with a broader base from the anti-immigration majority. But who supports Tina? Election denying Republicans in a blue state? Anyway, I guess it is a red county.
I say have Polis talk trash back to Trump. Threaten to secede. Make Colorado an immigration friendly country. That wall will be expensive to build crossing the Continental Divide, and Colorado won’t pay for it. But you can charge the hell out of foreigners for a tourist visa. And put tariffs on Arkansas, Rio Grande and Colorado river water imports.
Scott, it’s a different situation. The courts ruled to return Garcia. The courts can’t force Trump to blackmail El Salvador if El Salvador does not want to return him. So, even if Trump says he can, short of a declaration of war and invasion, Trump does not have to force it. But maybe Congress could defund them.
I’m not “approving” of authoritarian behavior. I am pointing out that our system is set up to counteract it. Thank goodness.
I agree that this is expensive (and exhausting in all respects) but this is the system we’re stuck with. As Obama said, “this is what democracy looks like.”
Just when one side thinks it”s won, something or someone comes along and says, “not so fast.”
As far as Tina goes…she got talked into a lot of stupid decisions but it’s my feeling that instead of a proper punishment for that she was made an example of and people were delighted. I must admit that I’d like to see them disappointed. I don’t know enough about the law to say if the way the case was presented was allowable. I have yet to see the agreements made before triak but I think Barrett’s commentary at sentencing was enough to at least put her sentence in question and I’m very glad it’s being questioned.
Our system is set up to counteract authoritarian behavior. But it depends on all three branches doing their job, and that isn’t happening. The Republican Congress is deciding to allow Trump to be authoritarian, and people like you are allowing them to get away with it. That’s the problem.
I watched Tina’s entire trial. Her defense never once tried to show she didn’t do it. They never once tried to argue that the prosecution’s case was weak. Time and time again they tried to argue that she was justified is doing what she did because of the big “conspiracy”. Unfortunately, the case wasn’t about whether she was justified. It was about whether she did it, and the jury found that she did, at least with regard to most of the charges. It is quitye possible, nearly certain, even, that she was talked into a lot of things. So have you. But she was the County Clerk, and the responsibility to protect our voting systems was hers, and she failed in that responsibility. She used Gerald Wood’s identity to allow someone without the required security clearance access to the voting machines. This is illegal, and is not in question.
You can rant all you want about the judge’s commentary, but he wasn’t the one who found her guilty. The jury did that. He was the one who gave her a lighter sentence than he could have, and he was the one who kept the trial focused on the law and not the conspiracy theories that the defense continuously tried to distract with.
It was clear from the outset that she did it. That was not in dispute.
I agree that she committed a crime. But I do not agree that her reasons were irrelevant.
All the hoopla about the cost to the county was overblown. Did you know that Dominion gave the new machines to Mesa County? I ask because most of the reporting says otherwise. And I think the costs didn’t have to be that large but were inflated to make her look worse. As I said, we shall see.
Hopefully nothing depends on all three branches doing their job. That’s 6th grade civics class talk.
We’re dealing with a bunch of self interested, calculating parties here.
The best way to look at it is, no one will be able to seize the reins.
Democracy depends on it.
Maybe democracy depends on always taking into consideration the frailties of human beings and designing a system that allows the maximum freedom and delivers consequences.
Trump isn’t out of the woods. It would seem that democrats should be figuring out their next candidate.
Maybe Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin or Eric Swallwell?
🙂
The courts ruled that the Trump administration should facilitate his return. Trump refused. And there are a lot of things the President of a large country like the US can do short of invasion to pressure a small country like El Salvadorto release a man who was deported wrongly, and imprisoned without a conviction. But for some reason a lot of people in this country just want to throw their hands up and surrender. Curious.
Who are the state Republicans who are pushing Trump to extort Colorado funding unless Peters is pardoned?
Coloradians should be outraged & express this to those Colorado R reps!
It’s the Colorado state republican party…not the elected representatives.
One of them was Colorado GOP Chair candidate and current Director of Special Initiatives, Darcy Shoening, suggested Trump withhold some federal funding from Colorado until Polis pardons Peters.
Unbelievable!
This woman cost Mesa County taxpayers SO MUCH money and made us a laughing stock nationwide!
Thank GOD this case was tried by state & Feds cannot interfere. What drives me crazy is all the reference to area Republicans (DA, jury, commissioners, McInnis, etc) convicting her. I know they are trying to show non-bias justice but what IF our area was Democrat leaning? R/D shouldn’t make a difference – she was tried & convicted appropriately . 9 yrs. And 9 yrs was lighter than what she could have got!
I hope this Trump rant is shut down quickly & he is held accountable for his illegal interference in this and so many others. SO SO many!