Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has suggested that Donald Trump blocked federal funding for a clean drinking water project in Colorado in retaliation over the prosecution of election denier Tina Peters.
Peters, a former county clerk, was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison for allowing unauthorized access to voting records following the 2020 presidential election. Colorado's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, commuted her sentence on Friday, ordering her release on 1 June. Boebert welcomed the decision, crediting pressure from herself and the former president.
Speaking to 9News Denver, Boebert said she hoped Peters' release would convince Trump to stop blocking funds for the water project. "We were told that Tina was the reason we couldn't get water," she said, in an apparent reference to Trump using his leverage over the governor in a manner reminiscent of his 2019 pressure on Ukraine.
In January, Trump vetoed a bill that had passed both houses of Congress unanimously and would have provided clean drinking water for 50,000 residents in Boebert's district. The president cited financial concerns at the time, but Boebert noted that Trump had previously supported the project before threatening retaliation over Peters' imprisonment and her own calls for the release of files relating to Jeffrey Epstein.
When the House of Representatives upheld the veto, Boebert criticised her colleagues for failing to override it, without directing criticism at Trump. "I am disappointed to see the lack of leadership, the amount of people that will fold, that will cave, that will not take a stand," she said. "This was purely political and it's very unfortunate."
