Recently, Colorado Governor Jared Polis reduced the sentence of Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of tampering with election equipment after a long pressure campaign from President Donald Trump that included withholding federal funds intended for Colorado.

Following this action by Governor Polis, Dan Greenberg, a senior legal fellow at the Cato Institute, released a statement:

“After Tina Peters’ conviction, President Trump regularly used the presidential bully pulpit to pressure Governor Polis to pardon Peters while promising, ‘If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures.’
 
“Those subsequent harsh measures presumably include the Trump administration’s removal of the U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama, the dismantling of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, the freezing of hundreds of millions in federal spending on social services, the cancellation of transportation grants to the state, and the veto of federal funding for a Colorado pipeline.
 
“Perhaps Governor Polis understood commuting Peters’s sentence as politically necessary. Perhaps he understood the President as sending a message – namely, compliance with presidential orders is the only way to end the budget pain that the president is inflicting on Colorado. But the Peters commutation sends a second message – namely, if you break the law to advance the president’s political prospects and get put in prison, the president will turn off the spigot of federal spending in your state until you are released. The president shouldn’t be in the business of distributing ‘get out of jail free’ cards to election tamperers, and Governor Polis shouldn’t be helping the president hand them out.”

To speak with Greenberg further on President Trump’s influence in getting Tina Peters’ sentence reduced, contact Christopher Tarvardian.