“The shocking White House email discussed in court earlier this week proves what we have long suspected: the White House orchestrated an unconstitutional scheme to weaponize the federal government to attack and punish Colorado for its lawful decisions over elections and our criminal justice system.
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A 3 A.M. White House Email Summoning Five Agencies to a "Brainstorm Call" on Colorado Surfaces in Court — Days After the State Refused to Free Tina Peters, and Weeks Before Hundreds of Millions in Grants Were Cut
August 14, 2026
An email written at roughly 3 a.m. on December 15, 2025 by Emily Underwood, a deputy assistant to the president and senior policy strategist, went to officials at the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Interior and Agriculture and at the Office of Management and Budget under the subject line "brainstorm call." Recipients were told to be "prepared to discuss immediate actions that your department or agency can take with respect to Colorado," and to "prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities." The email was sent a month after Colorado refused to move Trump ally Tina Peters — the Mesa County clerk convicted in state court over the 2020 election-equipment breach — to federal custody, and days after the state declined to give effect to Trump's clemency declaration for her. Hours after the email went out, Trump called Gov. Jared Polis "weak and pathetic" on live television. In the weeks that followed, federal agencies froze hundreds of millions of dollars owed to Colorado, denied disaster aid for fires and flooding, cut more than $600 million from 38 Colorado-affiliated energy projects, and announced plans to disband the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. The email surfaced publicly at an August 11, 2026 hearing in Colorado's lawsuit against the administration and was first reported by the Denver Post on August 13-14. Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson said from the bench that he had "never seen anything like it." Attorney General Phil Weiser called it proof of "an unconstitutional scheme"; Colorado's two senators and its House Democrats called it weaponization of the federal government. A White House spokeswoman denied the call had anything to do with Peters and said the president was using "lawful and discretionary authority."
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6 Statements
“Donald Trump is weaponizing the federal government to punish Colorado. His politically motivated attacks are reckless and put real lives and livelihoods at risk.
“The White House must preserve and produce all records related to the December 15 'brainstorm call.' We call on the Inspectors General of every federal agency involved to swiftly investigate how federal resources were used to target Colorado.
“shocking and illegal retribution campaign
“Punishing states, like Colorado, for purely partisan reasons is illegal and shows how unfit he is to serve in the nation's highest office.
“Since Trump took office, his administration has taken a number of actions that have negatively impacted Coloradans and our communities. If those decisions were based on political retribution against Colorado, we hope the courts will provide relief to Colorado. We have seen the very real impacts from the actions of the federal government against Colorado, and would hope that the president and administration would put people ahead of politics.
Background (1)— earlier statements that set the stage▸
“I've never seen anything like it. The very idea that the president... would target a state because they don't feel that the state and its administrators are in line with the current administration's priorities is phenomenal.