Re: “Peters released from prison after Polis reduces sentence,” June 2 news story

Now we know what a fool Gov. Jared Polis was by letting Tina Peters dupe him into thinking that she is sorry for tampering with our elections. Within hours of her release, she was on Steve Bannon’s MAGA program claiming that she was a victim for pointing out flaws in our election system. The only flaw was Polis letting her get away with spending only about 600 days of a nine-year sentence in prison.

Joe McGloin, Sheridan

Sanctuary city? Let the voters decide

Re: “Trump threatens ‘sanctuary city’ airports,” May 29 news story

It’s time to put Denver’s “sanctuary city” status to a public vote. Let’s have an open debate and decide.

Gretchen Foley, Denver

Appreciation for a family that appreciates our lands

Re: “Aspen family donates land near Independence Pass,” June 2 news story

Residents and visitors on both sides of Independence Pass owe a debt of gratitude to the Amy Margerum Berg family. Their generosity has resulted in preserving 235 acres of alpine terrain located along the slopes of Mount Champion in the San Isabel National Forest. While the Champion Mine property is out of view from most passersby, it����ap located just a little over a mile from Highway 82. It provides a home for bighorn sheep and is steeped in Colorado history.

It����ap particularly appropriate that the donation was made in honor of Amy’s late husband, Chuck McLean. Chuck loved this part of Colorado. He was always eager to share his enthusiasm for this landscape and its historical significance. In the 40 years or so since I first met Chuck, he demonstrated his commitment to conservation. He took on questions as broad as how the marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel could be protected from unfettered oil and gas development, to how climber access to La Plata Peak could best be preserved.

I had the opportunity to participate in a number of hikes that Chuck led into the remote backcountry mining sites on the eastern slopes of Independence Pass near his home at the historic stage stop of Everett. Chuck reveled in calling himself the mayor of the townsite, including its numerous log cabins, all in various states of falling back to the earth.
With this donation of key parcels of land, his legacy won’t be forgotten.

Phil Overeynder, Aspen

Baseball is more than wins vs. losses

Re: “Colorado sportsnation turns its lonely eyes to you, Rockies,” May 28 letter to the editor

Due to marriages, relocations, etc., I have been a Milwaukee Braves (yes, Milwaukee) fan, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, a Chicago Cubs fan, and, presently, a Colorado Rockies fan. I purchased an online subscription again to watch this young Rockies team.

There is a lot to be said about following a team from mediocrity to greatness. To me, the satisfying part of being a sports fan is following that rise, not how many wins vs. losses, not whether I covered my bets, etc.

Let’s slow down the pace of our lives and truly take in the great game of baseball.

Karen Lambert, Westminster

Tuned out by CBS

I have lived in the Denver area for 35 years. I have always favored Channel 4 among the various television options here. CBS always seemed to be serious and credible.  Now, with the cancellation of Stephen Colbert, the degradation of “60 Minutes,” the heavy-handed editing of “CBS News Sunday Morning,” and sloppy production and silly coverage on the “CBS Evening News,” there is not much reason to stick with Channel 4.

Hopefully, folks will continue to tune in to the Channel 4 10 p.m. news so they can seamlessly follow on to Byron Allen! But not me.

I wish the folks at KCNC-4 good luck being the plaything of David Ellison.

Scott Bridgford, Highlands Ranch

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Tina Peters grabbed another inmate’s neck and shoved her during a brief prison scuffle Sunday night, according to surveillance footage that appears to contradict claims from Peters’ defense attorney.

The footage, obtained by The Denver Post on Monday night, shows Peters, an ally of President Donald Trump and a former Mesa County clerk, maneuvering a large cart toward a closet through an open room. Peters then enters the closet, with the cart at the closet’s entrance. Another inmate, who appears to be carrying cleaning supplies, then enters the frame and appears to try to move the cart away from the closet door.

As the other woman moves the cart aside, Peters then emerges from the closet, grabbing the woman and shoving her into the middle of the room. Peters has one hand on the woman’s neck and another on her right arm, the video shows. The two then seem to exchange words, and Peters shoves her away.

Peters is obscured from video footage when the scuffle first starts. The other inmate is visible throughout most of the incident, save for a brief moment where part of her right arm is obscured by the closet door.

Both women later walk down a hallway.

The video was provided to The Post in response to a public records request. In a statement Monday night, state Corrections Department spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia confirmed that Peters “was involved in an incident with another inmate” Sunday night. No one was injured, she wrote. No one has been charged as a result of the scuffle, and Peters was moved to a different housing unit in the prison. Neither inmate was placed in solitary confinement, which is not utilized in that facility, Gonzalez-Garcia wrote.

The department is still investigating, she said.

The video and the department’s statement seemed to contradict claims from Peters’ supporters and defense team, who alleged in a news release that the former clerk was “assaulted” in the closet and that she now faces criminal charges as a result. One of Peters’ attorneys, Peter Ticktin, told Trump ally Steve Bannon on Monday that Peters was attacked “from behind.”

Ticktin did not immediately respond to an email sent Monday night.

Peters was sentenced to a combined nine years in jail and prison in October 2024. She was convicted of several crimes after she provided a third party access to Mesa County’s election systems. Her incarceration has become a cause celebre for Trump and conservative allies, who allege that Peters was wrongfully convicted. Trump, who issued a legally dubious federal pardon for Peters late last year, has repeatedly demanded that Colorado and Gov. Jared Polis release her.

Peters is appealing her conviction, and a state appeals court signaled some skepiticism about the length of her sentence last week.

Polis has said he is considering a request to release Peters or alter her sentence. He has called her sentence “harsh” and “unusual.” Pressed by reporters last week, he refused to say if he’s discussed the case with the Trump administration. He denied that he’d discussed releasing her as part of a trade for restored federal funding or other considerations. Several state officials — including Attorney General Phil Weiser, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and a group of county clerks — have asked him to leave Peters’ sentence in place.

A copy of Peters’ inmate file, also obtained through a records request, shows she had a mixed first year in prison. Between April and July 2025, she received four write ups, prompting prison officials to reject her application for a special unit. Parts of the file are redacted, though visible negative writeups appear to be related to minor issues, like loitering or “hiding.”

She told prison staff in August that she would soon be released, according to the file. In December, after officials told her she would not be released to visit her mother in the hospital, she said she planned to have “negative things” about the prison “plastered all over social media.”

Brita Horn, who previously served as the Routt County treasurer, was elected Saturday to a two-year term. She won on the second ballot at the party’s reorganization meeting in Colorado Springs, beating former state Rep. Lori Saine. Horn, who won out over a field of , succeeds former state lawmaker Dave Williams, who did not seek another term as chair.

In an interview Monday, Horn said her top priority was uniting the party to more meaningfully challenge Colorado Democrats’ gains in the Capitol.

“We’re just opening up the tent, bringing out the welcome wagon, rolling out the mat and saying ‘You’re all welcome,’ ” she said of different wings of the Republican Party.

She also said she supported closing Republican primaries — meaning that only registered Republicans would be able to participate. The state opened its partisan primaries in 2016, allowing unaffiliated voters — who make up a plurality of eligible voters — to participate in the primary of their choosing. Williams also had tried to close primaries.

On her website, Horn pledged to unite the party’s different factions, to audit the party’s finances, and to improve its leadership and infrastructure down to the “grassroots” level. Her election prompted celebratory social media posts from several Republican lawmakers and officials, including Williams’ predecessor , who now serves on .

Horn said she wants to stand up field offices across the state, which will likely mean closing the party’s longtime office in Greenwood Village. The goal, she said, is to work more closely with local officials and to ensure a Republican candidate runs in every state legislative race.

Horn, who unsuccessfully ran for state treasurer in 2018, inherits a Colorado Republican Party at a key moment. As Colorado has settled into a steady shade of blue, the state GOP took a turn to the right under Williams, releasing anti-LGBTQ+ statements, doubling down on debunked election conspiracies and — most recently — inviting Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump , to speak at a party gala Friday night. (Bannon has said he was waving.)

Fundraising slumped under Williams, and the party directed resources to the chairman’s own unsuccessful congressional bid last year. The party also took the controversial step of endorsing candidates in primary contests, including Williams.

Opposition to Williams — including from Horn — prompted an attempt to unseat him, unspooling a messy saga of dueling meetings and legal challenges that ended with a judge siding with Williams.

The Williams-led GOP then sued Horn and others over their efforts to remove the chairman; that case is ongoing.

Horn said Monday that the party would stop endorsing candidates during primary races. She also said she supported efforts to examine unproven “shenanigans” in Colorado elections and lawsuits challenging previous election results. those lawsuits as a “sham.”

In November, against a national backdrop of Republican gains nearly nationwide, Colorado Republicans flipped three seats in the state House and broke Democrats’ two-thirds supermajority. Republican Gabe Evans beat then-U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo to nudge the state’s U.S. House delegation to a 4-4 Republican-Democratic split.

Still, much of Colorado remained insulated from the broader rightward shift, and the GOP remains just one seat away from superminority status in both the state House and Senate. No Republican has won a statewide election in Colorado in nearly a decade.

Immediately on Horn’s agenda will be preparing for the 2026 elections to try to buck that trend. All four statewide elected offices — held by Democrats since 2018 — will be open. The race for Evans’ 8th Congressional District seat in northern Colorado will again be one of the most contested in the country.

While Williams’ strategy for electoral success had prioritized backing hardline conservatives in a blue state, Horn said she would pursue an approach focused on “opening up that tent and letting all types of Republicans be here.”

“You need a different kind of Republican” for different areas of the state, she said.

As for the party Horn will oppose, Colorado Democrats reelected party chair Shad Murib in mid-March. In a statement after Horn’s victory, Murib criticized Horn as a “perfect fit for the new age of corruption that Trump requires of his puppets.”

While some Colorado Republicans have lamented that Trump’s presence on the ballot hampers their chances here, Horn said the problem rests with the party’s infrastructure — not with the Republican standard-bearer.

“I think what the obstacle (has been) … is we had no foundation, no function,” she said. “We didn’t have any internal processes to go out and get the votes that I think were out there.”

The president pardoned Hunter Biden late Sunday evening, reversing his previous pledges with a grant of clemency that covers more than a decade of any federal crimes his son might have committed. The said in a statement that his son’s prosecution on charges of tax evasion and falsifying a federal weapons purchase form were politically motivated.

“He believes in the justice system, but he also believes that politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who along with Biden and other White House officials insisted for months that Hunter Biden would not get a pardon.

That explanation did not satisfy some Democrats, angry that Biden’s reversal could make it harder to take on , who has argued that were a matter of Biden and Democrats turning the justice system against him.

“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote of Biden on the social media platform X.

“When you become President, your role is Pater familias of the nation,” the governor continued, a reference to the president invoking fatherhood in explaining his decision. “Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles while also acknowledging that no one is above the law, not a President and not a President����ap son.”

Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., said on X: “This wasn’t a politically motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

Certainly, the president has plenty of Democratic defenders who note Trump’s use of presidential powers to pardon a slew of his convicted aides, associates and friends, several for activities tied to Trump’s campaign and administration.

“Trump pardoned Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, as well as his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner — who he just appointed US ambassador to France,” wrote prominent Democratic fundraiser Jon Cooper on X.

“Sorry, but Biden was right to pardon his son Hunter to protect him against Kash Patel’s weaponized FBI,” Cooper concluded, referring to Trump’s apparent plan to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray in favor of a loyalist who has talked of going after political opponents and journalists.

First lady Jill Biden said Monday from the White House: “Of course I support the pardon of my son.”

Democrats already are facing the prospects of a Republican trifecta in Washington, with voters returning Trump to the White House and giving the GOP control of the House and Senate. Part of their argument against Trump and Republican leaders is expected to be that the president-elect is violating norms with his talk of taking retribution against his enemies.

Before beating Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump faced his own legal troubles, including two cases that stemmed from his efforts to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Those cases, including Trump’s sentencing after being convicted on New York state business fraud charges, have either been dismissed or indefinitely delayed since Trump’s victory on Nov. 5, forcing Democrats to to the president-elect.

President Biden firmly ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”

As recently as Nov. 8, days after Trump’s victory, Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”

The president����ap about-face came weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges. It capped a long-running legal saga for the younger Biden, who disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after his father’s 2020 victory.

The sweeping pardon covers not just the gun and tax offenses against the younger Biden, but also any other “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.”

Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing , prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs. He had been set to stand trial in September in a California case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.

In his statement Sunday, the president argued that such offenses typically are not prosecuted with the same vigor as was directed against Hunter Biden.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in his statement. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son. … I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

___

Associated Press writers Will Weissert aboard Air Force One and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

Like other election deniers including fellow Coloradan Rebecca Lavrenz who was sentenced this week for participating in the January 6 assault on the Capitol, Peters continues to peddle the stolen election conspiracy theory to anyone who will buy it.

There’s a reason Peters, Lavrenz, pillow-magnate Mike Lindell, former president Donald Trump and other purveyors of misinformation have doubled down on deceit; they’re too invested to quit now.

If Stop the Steal was a garden-variety conspiracy theory, it wouldn’t matter. The delusions of flat earthers, 911 truthers, and chem trail trackers have no impact. This conspiracy theory, however, has undermined faith in U.S. elections, endangered election workers, and all but destroyed the credibility of a once formidable political party. Worse, the incendiary power of the lie smolders under the surface of the 2024 campaign. If Trump loses again in November, January 6 could be a mere prologue.

Peters involvement in Stop the Steal began in May 2021 when she and two of her employees hatched a plan to get Conan Hayes, a California surfer turned cyber sleuth for election denier Mike Lindell, into a Dominion Voting Systems computer upgrade with a stolen security badge. Hayes took copies and videos of the voting system which were later made public.

For her role, Peters was convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, official misconduct, attempting to influence a public servant, and violation of duty. In October, she will receive her sentence which could include significant jail time.

When the trial concluded, Peters went on Real America’s Voice, the DIY “news station” hosted by Steve Bannon (when he’s not in prison) to talk about how she, a “deep-state indicted election whistleblower,” was victimized by the court and the media. She also accused Serbia of being the epicenter of Dominion Voting Systems’ vote-flipping treachery. During the trial, her lawyer suggested China or Canada may have hacked the ballot machines in 2020. Why do Eastern Europeans always land the best bad-guy roles?

On social media, Peters blasted Dominion and the Colorado Secretary of State’s lawyers while lauding her own efforts with a Bible verse. On Lindell’s website, she compared herself to Jesus on the cross.

The need to be a hero of Biblical proportions also animates Rebecca Lavrenz, a Colorado Springs-area woman who calls herself the J6 Praying Grandma. She was sentenced this week to six months of home confinement and a $103,000 fine for her participation in the January 6, 2020 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She, too, is unrepentant. Although the judge ordered Lavrenz off the Internet for six months, her fundraising account, which has raised twice as much money as the fine, continues to grift.

According to the crowdfunding site, God chose Lavernz to carry His presence into the Capitol to “reconfirm the covenant …this country was established ‘…for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.’” The phrase, plucked context-free from the Mayflower Compact, refers to their voyage to “plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia.” As a justification for breaking the law four centuries later the Pilgrim’s contract makes as much sense as saying that the creator of the universe needed a lift indoors. Is that in Two Corinthians? Just asking.

The jury and judge didn’t buy it. Now if Edmond Burke could just send a cease and desist letter from the grave ordering Lavernz and every other election denier to stop abusing the quote attributed to him: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Following a violent mob into the U.S. Capitol hell-bent on subverting a presidential election is not what the British statesman had in mind.

These grand rationalizations, however absurd, may be or may not be sincere but they are self-serving. Peters, Lavernz, and Lindell have had more than 15 minutes of fame. When they leapt at the chance to be a hero of the story and they passed over mountains of evidence that it was all a lie. After four years, numerous court cases, defamation suits, and millions of dollars spent looking for proof of a stolen election and not one shred found, they cling to the delusion. As purveyors of that delusion, witting or not, they must be held accountable.

Did Donald Trump truly believe the 2020 election was stolen or did he cynically brandish the lie in hopes of overturning the election? The latter seems more likely but who knows? Self-interest deludes us all to one degree or another. One thing is certain; he will invoke the false allegation again if he loses. Trump continues to say he won the 2020 election. He has cast dispersion on mail-in voting systems including Colorado’s. This is groundwork.

One-time confidant, John Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor recently told CNN, “We know one thing for sure: Trump never loses. And so if he’s not declared the winner of 2024, as in 2020, it must be because he was treated unfairly yet again; it was stolen yet again.”

Heaven help us.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.

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Within days of each other, if not hours, the justices are expected to rule on whether Donald Trump has over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and whether Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol can be prosecuted for .

The court also will decide whether former Trump adviser Steve Bannon can stay out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction for from the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack.

These cases are among the dozen or so major disputes dealing with abortion, homelessness, the power of federal regulators, the opioid epidemic and social media platforms that the justices have left to decide as the traditional end of their term’s work nears.

Taken together, the three cases connected to the former president could feed narratives about the court and its conservative supermajority, which includes appointed by Trump and two other justices, and , who have rejected calls to step away from the Jan. 6 cases because of questions about their impartiality.

From the perspective of Trump and his allies, the outcomes could provide more fodder for their claims that the Justice Department has treated the Capitol riot defendants unfairly. The riots resulted in more than 1,400 criminal cases in which 200 people have been convicted and more than 850 pleaded guilty to crimes.

That has not deterred Trump and his allies from claiming the Justice Department has treated the Capitol riot defendants unfairly. The outcomes of the cases could give them more reasons to decry the prosecutions.

The court����ap handling of the immunity issue already has provoked criticism, both that the justices took up the issue at all — particularly given a unanimous federal appeals court ruling that rejected Trump’s claim — and more recently that they haven’t yet decided it.

Even if the court limits Trump’s immunity, or rejects his claims altogether, allowing his trial on election interference to go forward in Washington means “it is unlikely a verdict will be delivered before the election,” University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman wrote in The New York Times.

While the court has moved more quickly than usual in taking up the immunity case, it has acted far more speedily in other epic cases involving presidential power, including in the tapes case. Nearly 50 years ago, the court ruled 8-0 a mere 16 days after hearing arguments that Richard Nixon had to turn over recordings of Oval Office conversations, rejecting his claim of executive privilege.

In March, it took the justices less than a month after arguments to that the Constitution’s post-Civil War “insurrection clause” couldn’t be used by states to kick Trump off the presidential ballot.

The three cases related to Trump’s effort to undo his election loss in 2020 highlight how often he has appeared in the court����ap work this year, though now he is doing so as the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president. Trump also was a factor in and even a trademark dispute over the phrase “ .”

The court almost always finishes its work by the end of June, but it����ap not certain that will happen this year.

The court will next issue decisions on Wednesday. Among the other cases left to decide:

— Can doctors in states that banned abortion after the court overturned Roe v. Wade? In a case out of Idaho, the Biden administration says abortions must be allowed in emergencies where a woman’s health is at serious risk, while the state argues it is enough that its strict abortion ban contains an exception to save a woman’s life.

— The most significant Supreme Court case in decades on homelessness centers on whether people can be when shelter space is lacking. A San Francisco-based appeals court ruled such bans amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Leaders from California and across the West say the ruling makes it harder for them to regulate homeless encampments encroaching on sidewalks and other public places.

— The justices could that has been cited thousands of times in federal court cases and used to uphold regulations on the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections. The decision colloquially known as Chevron calls on judges to defer to federal regulators when the words of a statute are not crystal clear. The decision has long been targeted by conservative and business interests who say Chevron robs judges of their authority and gives too much power to regulators.

— Three cases remain unresolved at the intersection of social media and government. Two cases involve social media laws in Texas and Florida that would limit how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. In the third case, Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration over how far the federal government can go to counter controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.

— The Supreme Court controls the fate of a that would allocate billions of dollars to combat , but also provide a legal shield for members of the Sackler family who own the company. The settlement has been on hold since last summer after the Supreme Court agreed to weigh in.

— Republican-led, energy-producing states and the steel industry want the court to put the Environmental Protection Agency’s on hold while legal challenges continue. The plan aims to protect downwind states that receive unwanted air pollution from other states.

— Another important regulatory case the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool in fighting securities fraud and have far-reaching effects on other regulatory agencies. The court is being asked to rule that people facing civil fraud complaints have the right to a jury trial in federal court.

___

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at .

Timothy Shea was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge Analisa Torres, who presided over an October trial that ended with his conviction on charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of justice. A trial earlier in 2022 had ended when a jury deadlocked on charges.

Shea, 52, of Castle Rock, Colorado, also was ordered to forfeit $1.8 million and to pay restitution of an equal amount.

Shea was charged three years ago along with three others, including Steve Bannon, the former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump. Trump pardoned Bannon in early 2021 while two others pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison. Bannon, who is now being prosecuted in New York state court, has pleaded not guilty.

Torres said Shea and the others not only cheated donors but also “hurt us all” by damaging faith in the country’s political system by capitalizing on those who believed that building a wall would help secure the nation’s borders.

She noted that donors who testified at trial included a longtime Army veteran and a teacher whose deceased husband had worked as a border agent.

Before the sentence was announced, Shea told the judge that he regretted “all of the ‘We Build The Wall’ stuff.”

He asked for leniency, saying his wife and teenage children needed him at home.

Prosecutors said Shea pocketed $180,000 in a fundraiser that promised donors that 100% of the money raised would go toward building the wall.

Shea owns an energy drink company, Winning Energy, whose cans have featured a cartoon superhero image of Trump and claim to contain “12 oz. of liberal tears.”

In a release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Shea abused the trust of donors when he “stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to line his own pockets, and attempted to obstruct the federal investigation of his criminal conduct.”

The scheme began after late 2018, when hundreds of thousands of donors began pouring millions into the campaign to build a wall.

Earlier this year, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato were sentenced after pleading guilty to charges in the case. Kolfage, 41, of Miramar Beach, Florida, received four years and three months in prison while Andrew Badolato, 58, of Cocoa, Florida, was sentenced to three years in prison.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A defamation lawsuit is revealing scornful behind-the-scenes opinions by Fox News figures about Donald Trump, including a Tucker Carlson text message declaring, “I hate him passionately.”

Carlson’s private text comments were revealed in court papers at virtually the same time the former president was hailing the Fox News host on social media. Trump said he was doing a “great job” in presenting excerpts of U.S. Capitol security video of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — though Carlson used the video to produce a false narrative of the attack.

The documents are coming to light at a time of increased tension between Trump and Fox, the dominant media force appealing to conservatives, as he campaigns to regain the presidency.

Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming the network broadcast false claims that the company was responsible for fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The case is to go to trial this spring, and a trove of documents related to Fox’s actions after the election are being publicly released in advance.

A common theme emerging from the internal documents and depositions is that Fox executives and hosts doubted the election claims being peddled by Trump and his allies, but aired and emphasized them anyway. Fox was growing concerned about a decline in viewership as Trump supporters turned away from the network after it — correctly — called Joe Biden the presidential winner in Arizona on election night.

The exchanges include Carlson’s text conversation on Jan. 4, 2021, with an unknown person, in which the prime-time host expressed anger toward Trump.

Carlson said that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.”

Carlson said he had no doubt there was fraud in the 2020 election, but that Trump and his lawyers had so discredited their case — and media figures like himself — “that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”

Federal and state officials, courts, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, although Trump continues to falsely state that the presidency was stolen from him.

Addressing Trump’s four years as president, Carlson said, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

In another text exchange more than a month earlier, Carlson denigrated Trump’s business abilities: Trump’s talent, he said, is to “destroy things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

Publicly, Fox viewers heard very different views, such as a 2017 exchange with colleague Greg Gutfeld in which Carlson agreed that Trump was “the greatest president that ever will be.” On his show in 2019, Carlson said Trump had fought as hard as he could to make sure everyone in America was treated equally under the law.

“You can say what you really believe in public,” Carlson said then. “You’re an American citizen. That is your right.” Trump could lose in 2020, he added, “but he’ll be a genuinely great president.”

Fox, in response to the court exhibits quoting Carlson that were released late Tuesday, said that “Dominion has been caught red handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”

Carlson has continued rolling out security video from the Capitol attack, footage handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. For that, Trump said on his social media platform, “congratulations to Tucker Carlson on one of the biggest ‘scoops’ as a reporter in U.S. history.”

The selective release of the footage to sway the historical account has drawn criticism, including from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday called on Fox to stop spreading election lies, which he said was eroding trust in American democracy.

Fox’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, has a complex relationship with Trump: “I was not close to him,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the libel lawsuit.

Indeed, though Murdoch acknowledged talking to Trump occasionally, he said he also sought inside information from Sean Hannity, one of his network’s primetime hosts, because Hannity was the closest person at Fox to Trump.

Following Trump’s loss in November 2020, Murdoch despaired of the president’s behavior.

“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch wrote in an email to a friend that month. “Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls! Don’t know about Melania, but kids no help.”

But Murdoch told his network’s officials that he also didn’t want to “antagonize” Trump: “He had a very large following, and they were probably mostly viewers of Fox, so it would have been stupid,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the Dominion case.

In separate questioning in the case, Murdoch acknowledged that he believed the 2020 presidential election “ was not stolen.”

On social media recently, Trump was critical of Fox when other court papers released in the Dominion case made clear that a number of the network’s executives and personalities privately believed the election fraud claims were bunk.

Trump and his team also have accused Fox of giving his latest campaign for the presidency little attention and favoring a potential challenger for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fox and Trump have long had a complicated relationship. While he frequently has used the network to reach its audience, he also has been furious at a perceived lack of loyalty, most prominently after the 2020 election.

In a fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee last week, Trump ally Steve Bannon complained that Fox had disrespected the former president.

“You’ve deemed Trump’s not going to be president,” Bannon said. “Well, we deem you’re not going to have a network.”

On Saturday afternoon, Fox News aired Trump’s speech to CPAC in its entirety.

___

Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Gary Fields and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report, as did news researcher Randy Herschaft in New York.

Peters was referring to her upcoming trial on seven felony charges related to her role in allegedly accessing confidential voting machine data while she was clerk in western Colorado’s Mesa County. The incident made her a hero to election conspiracy theorists but unpopular with all but her party’s hardest-core voters.

Peters, who condemns the charges as politically motivated, finished third in last year’s GOP primary to run for secretary of state, Colorado’s top elections position.

Now Peters has become part of a wave of election deniers who, unable to succeed at the polls, have targeted the one post — state party chair — that depends entirely on those hardest-core Republicans.

Embracing election conspiracy theories was a political albatross for Republicans in states that weren’t completely red last year, with deniers losing every statewide bid in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the movement has focused on GOP state party chairs — positions that usually are selected by only dedicated activists and have the power to influence the party’s presidential nominating contest and some aspects of election operations, such as recruiting poll watchers.

“The rise of this dangerous ideology nationwide and the rise within party machinery are ominous,” said Norm Eisen, a prominent Washington lawyer and former ambassador who is executive chair of States United Democracy Center, which tracks election deniers. “It����ap an outrageous phenomenon.”

Kristina Karamo, a former community college instructor who lost her bid last fall to become Michigan’s secretary of state by 14 percentage points, won the chair of the Michigan Republican Party a week ago. She beat a fellow election denier, failed attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno.

In Kansas, Mike Brown, a conspiracy theorist who lost his primary bid for secretary of state, was named chair of the state party.

Peters is just one of multiple candidates for the Colorado position who have repeated former President Donald Trump’s lies that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

“We can’t just say, ‘Oh, it����ap time to get over 2020 and be done with that,’” said Aaron Wood, a self-described Christian conservative father also running for Colorado GOP chair, who organized a slate of candidates to take over the party’s top posts. “Until I have 100% confidence that the election has integrity, I will not be done with that.”

The wave of election deniers follows a push by Trump during his administration to stock the roster of party chairs with loyalists, several of whom supported his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and remain in the White House. Of those, Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona GOP, did not run again and was replaced by another Trump loyalist, former state Treasurer Jeff DeWitt. In Georgia, chairman David Shafer has announced he won’t seek another term this June, amid scrutiny over whether he could be indicted for efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.

As in most states, the new Georgia party head will be selected by leaders of local county parties. Many of those are Trump loyalists who also backed Shafer’s bid to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state. But Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who defied Trump’s request and easily beat a primary challenger last year backed by Shafer, has marginalized the state party, creating a parallel structure to raise money and turn out voters.

That����ap an example of how the once powerful post of state party chair has changed.

“It used to be adjacent to public service, to be the state party chair, and now it����ap something where you get to dunk on Democrats on Twitter,” said Robert Jones, a Republican pollster in Idaho.

In that state, Dorothy Moon, an election denier and former state representative who made an unsuccessful primary run for secretary of state, became the Idaho GOP chair last year.

Still, Eisen noted that state parties have important roles in appointing poll workers and poll watchers in many states. A perennial fear has been that conspiracists could fill those positions and disrupt elections, though that did not happen in 2022 despite a prominent conservative effort to find more poll watchers.

“Maybe the Karamos and the Browns and the Moons will implode,” Eisen said. “There is a kind of incompetence that goes with this ideology. But it����ap a concerning trend given the power these state parties have.”

Parties also have a major role in structuring their primaries. In Michigan, the party apparatus that Karamo now leads has the power to move its nominating contest to a closed convention, where activists select the winner.

“Donald Trump would love there to be a convention for Michigan’s delegates,” Jason Roe, the former executive director of the state party, said in an interview.

Ironically, Trump had endorsed DePerno, a lawyer who unsuccessfully sued to force a new count in 2020. Instead, Karamo, whom the former president had supported in her secretary of state race, won. She has described abortion as “child sacrifice” and Democrats as having a “Satanic agenda.”

Last week, on the podcast of Trump adviser Steve Bannon last week, Karamo said Michigan was “ground zero for the globalist takeover of the United States of America.”

In Colorado, many Republican strategists say they are prepared for Peters or another election denier to win the party chair position next month.

“People seem almost resigned that the party is going to fall into the hands of this crowd for the next two years,” said Sage Naumann, one of the operatives, who said usually a chair’s impact on elections is “neutral,” but that could change.

“If they’re constantly making controversial statements, then they can be detrimental,” Naumann said.

The insurgent candidates running for Colorado’s chair argue things can’t get worse for the GOP in the state. Republicans lost every statewide race by double digits in November and have their smallest share of seats in the Legislature in state history.

The candidates for party chair claim the Colorado GOP has been too timid and needs to be more outspoken and conservative — a risky bid in a state that has been rapidly moving to the left. As part of that, they seek to restrict the primary to only registered Republicans, shutting out voters not affiliated with any party who have been eligible to participate. That would require overturning a voter-approved ballot measure, which activists failed to do in a lawsuit last year. They hope to have a better shot with the party chair’s support.

At the debate last week in Parker, former state Rep. Dave Williams said: “It����ap time we had a warlike leader who is going to go toe-to-toe” with Democrats.

Williams later added: “Joe Biden is not a legitimate president.”

Only one candidate, Erik Aadland, a military veteran who unsuccessfully ran for Congress last year, cautioned about the election denier rhetoric. He noted that Democrats effectively used a tape of him questioning the validity of the 2020 election against him in his race. In an interview, he said specifically that he worried about Peters’ candidacy.

“It����ap not healthy, the words we’re using, the rhetoric we’ve been using,” Aadland said. And, he added, “I don’t think it’d be healthy to have a chairwoman under seven indictments.”

Peters, however, reveled in her national profile. She noted that she had just started a podcast that had 60,000 downloads on its first day and that she raised $250,000 to fund a recount in three days after the 2022 primary –a recount that confirmed her loss.

During a separate debate Saturday, she demonstrated the appeal of her message to voters whose beliefs are increasingly unpopular in a liberal state.

“It����ap not your fault that we lost this election in 2022. It����ap not my fault that we lost this election in 2022,” she told another crowd of Republican voters at a suburban pizzeria. “It����ap because of the machines.”

Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

Associated Press coverage of democracy receives support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Timothy Shea stared straight ahead without reaction as he was convicted in Manhattan federal court of two conspiracy counts and an obstruction of justice charge by a jury that deliberated about six hours after a one-week retrial. He said nothing when he was asked to comment as he left the building. Sentencing was set for Jan. 31.

Another jury deadlocked on charges in the spring after 11 jurors wrote a note to the judge to say one juror had accused the others of being politically biased and suggesting the trial should be held in the South.

Shea, of Castle Rock, Colorado, was charged two years ago along with three others, including Steve Bannon, the former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump. Bannon, who is now being prosecuted in state court, was pardoned by Trump just before he left office last year. Two others have pleaded guilty.

With its verdict, the jury rejected arguments by Shea’s lawyer, John Meringolo, that prosecutors had failed to prove there was fraud in the promotion of the “We Build The Wall” fundraiser that attracted $25 million in donations from hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

Meringolo also encouraged jurors during closing arguments Thursday to conclude that New York was an improper venue for the trial.

He also tried to convince them that his client had a right to accept reimbursement of extensive expenses related to the wall because he had done substantial work negotiating with homeowners on whose property the wall would be built and providing security for the construction. Only a few miles of wall were built.

Shea owns an energy drink company, Winning Energy, whose cans have featured a cartoon superhero image of Trump and claim to contain “12 oz. of liberal tears.”

After the verdict, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that Shea and his codefendants lied to donors and “stole over $25 million from their victims.”

He referenced the failure to secure a guilty verdict from a jury last spring when he said his office after the trial had “stated our belief in the powerful and compelling evidence that showed Shea’s guilt. Today, a unanimous jury has convicted Shea on all counts in the indictment. I commend the prosecutors of this Office for their perseverance in ensuring justice was done.”

Bannon, 68, last month pleaded not guilty to New York state charges alleging that he cheated investors to the “We Build The Wall” campaign. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.