{"id":779,"date":"2026-05-31T14:36:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=779"},"modified":"2026-05-31T14:36:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:36:38","slug":"how-trump-bullied-a-dem-governor-into-releasing-a-convicted-criminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=779","title":{"rendered":"How Trump bullied a Dem governor into releasing a convicted criminal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Colorado Governor Jared Polis popped up on a Colorado Democratic Party Zoom call this week with black tape<\/u> plastered over his mouth. While Polis dodged reporters\u2019 requests for comment on what the hell he was thinking, he appeared to be smarting from overwhelming censure by his own party for commuting the sentence of election-denier Tina Peters. Peters was serving a nine-year sentence for leaking county election data to Mike \u201cMy Pillow\u201d Lindell in a bid to prove the Big Lie of a stolen 2020 election. Thanks to Polis, Peters will walk free on parole on June 1.<\/p>\n

Read more Behind a Trump aide\u2019s surreal plan to shut down travel \u2014and sink the U.S. economy<\/a><\/p>\n

The gag is Polis trying to cast himself as a free-speech martyr rather than a sucker. He claims he commuted Peters\u2019 sentence because the trial judge improperly punished her for her election denial ideology, over and above her criminal actions. <\/p>\n

The judge brought up her beliefs in order to illustrate her complete lack of remorse, but an appeals court agreed with Polis. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are no hero, you abused your position, and you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again,\u201d Judge Matthew Barrett said at her sentencing. \u201cYour lies are well-documented, and these convictions are serious. I’m convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as a defendant as this court has ever seen.\u201d <\/p>\n

The appeals court ordered Barrett to re-sentence Peters without taking her ideology into account. Peters\u2019 free speech rights had already been vindicated, but instead of letting the process play out, Polis foolishly tried to earn some credit with Trump by commuting her sentence. <\/p>\n

Polis acquiesced to Trump’s ruthless and unconstitutional pressure campaign to free Peters. Polis has proven that Trump can bully governors into springing maga criminals from state prison. Trump can pardon federal crimes and now he’s dangling $1.8 billion taxpayer dollars in front of the goons who stormed the Capitol on J6. State prison is the last bulwark against maga crime and Polis foolishly set the precedent that governors can be bullied into short-circuiting justice for Trump\u2019s cronies. <\/p>\n

Trump fake-pardoned<\/u> Peters late last year and demanded that Polis release her from prison. Colorado\u2019s attorney general shrugged off the stunt, because it was devoid<\/u> of legal merit. The president has no power to pardon state-level crimes. <\/p>\n

Polis tried to minimize Peters\u2019 misdeeds. \u201cThis was after the 2021 \u2014 it was a small municipal election in the town,\u201d Polis told<\/u> CNN. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what happened. <\/p>\n

In a bid to prove the Big Lie, Peters conspired with another elected official and a clique of conspiracists to leak her county\u2019s most sensitive election data. She smuggled one of Mike Lindell\u2019s minions into the facility to copy the data, which ended up online. <\/p>\n

It was gross official misconduct. The compromised voting machines had to be replaced at a cost of over a million dollars<\/u>. Peters also defied subpoenas issued to investigate her crimes and even kicked a cop while resisting arrest. <\/p>\n

Read more Conservative: GOP in crisis mode as Trump\u2019s erratic antics hurls party into freefall<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf [Peters] is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!\u201d Trump threatened<\/u> last summer.<\/p>\n

A campaign of vengeance ensued. Trump slashed transportation funding<\/u>, relocated Space Command<\/u>, and killed the world-renowned<\/u> National Center for Atmospheric Research, which supported hundreds of good jobs in Colorado. Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have provided clean drinking water for part of Colorado. \u201cWe were told that Tina was the reason we couldn\u2019t get water,\u201d Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado said<\/u>. Trump threatened to kick Colorado out of the federal food stamp program, a move a federal judge deemed unconstitutional because it was a blatant attempt to punish<\/u> the state for Peters\u2019 incarceration.<\/p>\n

Trump ordered the Department of Justice to \u201ctake all necessary action<\/u>\u201d to get Peters out of prison. \u201cWe did it in a way that puts the right kind of pressure on them,\u201d Justice Department official Ed Martin boasted<\/u>, adding that \u201cif you\u2019re Colorado \u2026 if the feds say we want something, you change your tune.\u201d <\/p>\n

A senior White House official, who declined to be identified sounding like a mafia underboss, told the Times<\/em><\/em> in response to the research center closure announcement that Coloradans would be better served if Governor Polis wanted to work with the president<\/u>. <\/p>\n

Everything Peters has done since her commutation seems calculated to make Polis look as foolish as possible. Polis claimed that Peters had taken responsibility for her crimes and had shown \u201ca commitment to follow the law going forward.” Whereupon, Peters accused<\/u> the Colorado secretary of state and the attorney general of being part of a vast conspiracy. In an appeal filed last week<\/u>, the unrepentant Peters argued that the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump should have been able to pardon her for a state crime, because she was acting on his behalf when she leaked Mesa County\u2019s election data.<\/p>\n

Even Polis\u2019s claim that Peters is non-violent is a stretch. She kicked a cop while resisting arrest<\/u>. She was later caught on prison CCTV throttling a fellow inmate<\/u>. <\/p>\n

Vice president JD Vance floated Peters as a potential beneficiary of Trump\u2019s $1.8 billion slush fund for pedophiles, insurrectionists and white supremacists. The fund is supposedly to compensate people who were wrongly convicted or excessively sentenced by Joe Biden\u2019s Justice Department. Yet Peters never caught a federal case. Instead, she, like Trump, was convicted of multiple state-level felonies. If Peters can get federal taxpayer cash for her state case, what\u2019s to stop Trump from demanding cash for his 34 felony convictions in New York? <\/p>\n

Trump pardoned all the January 6th insurrectionists on his first day in office. Now he\u2019s promising to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams with our tax dollars. Between the power of the pardon and the power of the purse, Trump has powerful tools to induce his followers to commit crimes on his behalf. Only the state justice systems remain nominally beyond Trump\u2019s reach. <\/p>\n

Trump bullied Polis by withholding federal funds until Polis let Peters out of prison. Peters has already vowed to keep fighting for \u201celection integrity\u201d upon her release. The White House has all but promised to pay her for her trouble with our tax dollars.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Pressure\u2019 shows why Eisenhower trusted scientists over blowhards \u2014and why we should too<\/a><\/p>\n

Jared Polis made it all possible. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou are no hero, you abused your position, and you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Trump bullied a Dem governor into releasing a convicted criminal - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=779\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Trump bullied a Dem governor into releasing a convicted criminal - 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