(REUTERS)

When the Trump administration requested that Colorado transfer custody of Tina Peters from the state to the federal government, there was only one plausible response: Not in a million years.

But Gov. Jared Polis seems to have a different idea.

For some mysterious reason, he appears to think there might be some merit to the request. No matter how he comes down on the matter, he has already undermined the rule of law and insulted every local official who helps manage honest elections in the face of right-wing extremist threats.

Peters is serving time in state prison, and for good reason: The Republican former Mesa County clerk was the linchpin in a plan to breach the security of her own election equipment to prove the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. She was convicted in state court of multiple counts related to the scheme, including four felonies, and sentenced to almost nine years behind bars.

The local district attorney who prosecuted the case was a Republican in a county that favored Trump by 28 percentage points, and there is no credible reason to think the conviction was unjust or compromised by politics.

But in MAGA America, what matters more than anything is personal loyalty to President Donald Trump, which Peters offers in ample measure. That’s why the president has repeatedly demanded that she be released, claiming preposterously that “she did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election” and promising “harsh measures” if Colorado fails to comply.

In March, J. Bishop Grewell, then the acting U.S. attorney for Colorado, and Peter McNeilly, then an assistant U.S. attorney for Colorado, were among three Justice Department officials who told a federal judge in Colorado they were reviewing the state’s prosecution of Peters. This month, Trump’s Bureau of Prisons formally made a request to the Colorado Department of Corrections to transfer her to federal custody.

The request is corrupt and deserves no consideration. Trump wants to aid a criminal ally, as he’s already done so many times since January.

“One is only left to assume that either the Trump administration wants her moved to federal custody so that they could somehow then release her outside of the jurisdiction of Colorado, which would be a blockbuster obstruction of justice by the U.S. government against a lawful state criminal order, or they want to put her in federal custody to give her some improved conditions,” lawyer Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, said during an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.

Yet more than a week after the Trump administration sent its request to the state, Polis’ office in a statement to Newsline said he was still “reviewing” the request.

There’s nothing to review. As stated by Phil Weiser, the Democratic Colorado attorney general, and Dan Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney who prosecuted Peters, in a joint letter last week imploring Polis to deny the administration’s request, Trump “has no legal basis to interfere with the sentence in this case,” and the request is an attempt “to circumvent Colorado’s sovereignty.”

Even if Polis ultimately decides to deny the request, his long silence in the face of such brazen lawlessness has already made him look weak, and it has done real damage. During a Tuesday press conference, when a bipartisan group of local election officials from around the state exhorted Polis to deny the request, county clerks said they have experienced an “immediate uptick in concerns about safety” in relation to the Peters case.

The clerks said they have yet to even hear from Polis, even though they sent him a letter last week requesting a meeting with him about Peters.

This is hardly the first time Polis has appeared to accommodate Trump or fully sided with team MAGA. His administration has been all too eager to supply sensitive information about Colorado residents to ICE as part of Trump’s inhumane mass deportation program.

In the Peters case, he risks undermining the rule of law and fueling doubts about voting in a state where brave Democratic and Republican officials have done so much to defend free and fair elections.

He owes it to anyone who hopes systems of justice can withstand authoritarian attacks to quickly, forcefully and publicly tell the Trump administration that Peters isn’t going anywhere.