Trump admin threatens Colorado in bid to spring imprisoned election denier

The Trump administration is taking steps to threaten the state of Colorado, in an attempt to compel the release of an infamous former Mesa County elections clerk serving a nine-year prison sentence for an illegal scheme to try to prove President Donald Trump's election conspiracy theories.

According to 9 News, "The Colorado Department of Corrections confirms it received notice from the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Nov. 12, a concrete move toward a speculative strategy" to spring Tina Peters. "President Trump cannot pardon the former Mesa County clerk, who is serving a nine-year prison term on state charges for a scheme to sneak fellow election deniers into Colorado’s voting systems in a search for election rigging."

Per Trump's pardon attorney Ed Martin, “We did it in a way that puts the right kind of pressure on them. If the feds say we want something, you change your tune.”

Trump has called Peters a "hostage" and in May directed the Justice Department to devise a plan to free her.

This comes after other reporting that far-right activists have devised a plan in which the Justice Department would claim Peters is a witness in an ongoing case and compel Colorado to transfer her to federal custody, where she could then be given a luxury lockup similar to that given to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reportedly stood in the way of this idea, prompting fury from the MAGA world and calls for his removal by some Trump loyalists.

Meanwhile, according to the report, "Some Republican leaders in Colorado have called for the Trump administration to withhold federal funding from the state until Peters is freed."

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, the report noted, has previously said he will not capitulate on the issue, and “justice is not for sale.”