If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime – unless you have the right political connections?

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis reportedly is considering a Trump administration request to transfer convicted felon Tina Peters – the Republican former Mesa County clerk – to federal custody. Peters is serving a nine-year state sentence for breaching her own county’s election system in a failed attempt to prove the 2020 election was stolen.

The facts are damning: Peters shut off surveillance cameras, obtained credentials for an IT contractor under false pretenses, and handed them to a hacker posing as the contractor so he could copy sensitive election data.

The kicker? Peters committed several felonies to “prove” something she’d already had the legal power to verify. As clerk, she possessed the original paper ballots. A Republican county commissioner offered to fund a hand recount. When it really mattered, she refused.

“She chose none of the legal options and chose to lead a criminal plot to subvert her election systems in Mesa County,” Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told me on KHOW.

In the process, she proved nothing – except her own guilt.

On Nov. 12, the Federal Bureau of Prisons asked Colorado’s Department of Corrections to transfer Peters to their custody. The governor must approve it – and media reports say he might.

Last week, Republican Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein – who was elected alongside Peters in the deeply Republican county and prosecuted her case – and Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser sent Polis a joint letter urging him to reject the request.

Peters’ lawyers claim the feds are only seeking a transfer of custody, not full release – allegedly so “she could more easily be involved in investigations into voting machines” and due to “health problems.”

Through a federal habeas corpus lawsuit, Peters is seeking release on bond. Her latest filing on Friday claims she was moved to solitary confinement after complaining about a corrections officer who allegedly discussed her case with other inmates. In truth, it all comes down to this: Peters thinks she deserves special treatment.

When Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced Peters in October 2024, he saw through the act. “You are as privileged as they come,” he told her, noting she had four lawyers, assistants and private jet rides – unlike defendants from broken homes battling addiction who usually occupy the defendant’s chair. He called her “as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen” and predicted she’d do it again.

A year later, that defiance continues – alienating fellow inmates while her lawyers feed the fantasy of a righteous crusader awaiting presidential salvation. You don’t need to watch Paramount’s “Mayor of Kingstown” to know prisoners won’t tolerate self-aggrandizement.

Here’s the thing: Peters received nearly nine years when she could have gotten 20. She’ll be eligible for parole within 2.5 years. She won’t serve her full sentence.

In fact, Colorado has a process for inmates over age 55 with serious health issues: Special Needs Parole. Requests are backed with medical evaluations, assigned a case manager and reviewed by the parole board.

Her lawyers list a litany of ailments in federal court filings, which are being used to support a transfer – “persistent undiagnosed cough, possible recurrence of lung cancer, constant pain in her neck, back, and hips, sleep deprivation, and cognitive decline.” So, where is the Special Needs Parole request?

“I have not been notified that she has filed one,” Rubinstein said. The DA’s office is always alerted when someone applies.

If her health is truly collapsing, the 70-year-old Peters has a path in state law – one she apparently isn’t using. This isn’t about medical needs; it’s about preserving the myth and perpetuating the grift. A quiet parole application won’t make headlines or fuel the martyr narrative.

Rubinstein and Weiser call the proposed transfer an “attempt to bypass our judicial system – all to offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence,” akin to Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. “At worst,” they warn, it could “aid the unauthorized or illegal release of a convicted felon by the federal government.”

“Coloradans, specifically Mesa County citizens, and employees of the State of Colorado, were the victims of Ms. Peters’ crimes,” they write, arguing the feds have “no legal basis to interfere.”

Separately, the Clerks Association urged Polis to reject the transfer. Forty-one clerks are Republican.

“To remove Ms. Peters… would send a deeply damaging message to the clerks who upheld their oath under extraordinarily difficult circumstances,” they wrote. “It would imply that accountability… can be negotiated or avoided, while those who acted honorably were left to face the consequences alone.”

The clerks’ letter defending justice, Crane told me, has triggered law-enforcement concerns for their safety. That’s on Polis.

“The governor appreciates correspondence on this, including from the Colorado Clerks Association, AG Weiser, and DA Rubenstein,” a spokesperson said, asserting Polis agrees the clerks have built one of the nation’s “most accessible, secure, and transparent election systems.”

Really, Jared? Polis is ducking. If so, why? Whatever the answer, Coloradans deserve to know. Anything less is cowardice.

Peters did the crime. She can do the time. But while principled clerks and prosecutors defend the institutions she’s undermined, Polis leaves them to take the heat. It’s time for the governor to step up, do what’s right – and honor the rule of law.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.