Trump Attacks Colorado Gov. Polis Over Tina Peters's Election Case

In December 2025, Trump repeatedly attacked Colorado Governor Jared Polis over the imprisonment of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years for granting unauthorized access to county election equipment during a 2021 security breach. On December 4, Trump called Polis a "sleazebag" and described Peters, then 73, as "unfairly convicted"; later in the month he said he wanted Polis and others in Colorado to "rot in hell."

Peters's conviction followed a jury trial addressing conduct prosecutors said undermined election security. Trump's response recast a completed criminal case as political persecution rather than accepting the outcome of the legal process, continuing a pattern of framing convictions tied to 2020 election interference as acts of loyalty rather than crimes.

Polis responded by telling Trump to focus on affordability issues instead. Polis later reduced Peters's sentence in 2026, a decision that drew its own controversy given the underlying conviction for compromising election security.