White House summons five agencies to plan actions against Colorado
Emily Underwood, a deputy assistant to President Trump, emailed officials at five federal agencies to convene a same-day call, asking them to come prepared to discuss immediate actions their department or agency could take with respect to Colorado.
What happened
The email went out under the subject line "brainstorm call" at 2:43 a.m. on Dec. 15, to officials from the departments of energy, transportation, interior and agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget, and stated that its purpose was to prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities. It was sent hours before Trump publicly castigated Gov. Jared Polis as "weak and pathetic" over the continued imprisonment of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters. In the days that followed, several agencies included in the email announced adverse actions against Colorado, canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and moving to close a renowned climate lab in Boulder. The email was disclosed publicly during a hearing in Denver as part of a Colorado lawsuit alleging retaliation by the Trump administration, which state officials argue was motivated by the president's frustration with Peters' incarceration and by the state's mail-in balloting system.
Why it matters
Federal grants and federal support are meant to turn on statutory criteria, not on whether a state's handling of its elections and its courts pleases the president. A directive issued from inside the Executive Office of the President to find immediate actions against one named state converts ordinary federal funding into a lever over how that state runs its elections.