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Multiple Colorado congressional lawmakers are speaking out after an email from a White House staffer seemed to confirm that the Trump administration was looking to retaliate against Colorado.

The email, first reported by the Denver Post, came to light during a hearing earlier this week on Colorado’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over alleged retaliation over how the state runs its elections. 

The email dated Dec. 15, 2025, was sent a month after Colorado refused to move Trump ally Tina Peters to a federal jail and days after Colorado ignored Trump’s clemency declaration of Peters. (Peters was found guilty of breaking state laws, not federal.)

Emily Underwood, who is Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Policy Strategist, sent an email to officials from five federal agencies to join a call “to discuss immediate actions that your department or agency can take with respect to Colorado.” She added the call was to prioritize the state to ensure grants and federal supports “are in line with administration priorities."

Among the departments that were sent the email include Energy, Transportation and Interior. Some of the agencies canceled grants in the days after the call, including environmental transportation grants. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said the email shows that, “Donald Trump is weaponizing the federal government to punish Colorado. His politically motivated attacks are reckless and put real lives and livelihoods at risk.”

Fellow Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper is calling for an investigation. “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. Federal resources are for the American people, not weapons against the president’s perceived enemies.”

Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd pointed out that politics has always involved hardball and that presidents of both parties have had disagreements with states in the past. But he worries that this is different.

“We do not know all the facts yet, and the Administration should explain what happened, but federal power cannot be used for political retaliation,” he said in a statement to CPR News. He added if federal agencies were directed to punish Colorado, that “crosses a serious line.”

It is not uncommon for the federal government to pursue avenues to persuade states to bring their policies in line with administration priorities.

There has been no love lost between Trump and Colorado.

Aside from Peters and mail-in voting, Colorado has never voted for Trump in any of his three runs for president. And a group of Republican and independent voters sought to have Trump removed from the presidential ballot in 2024, a case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Still, Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, described the email as a “shocking and illegal retribution campaign,” while Rep. Diana DeGette said the email was “disturbing.”

“Punishing states, like Colorado, for purely partisan reasons is illegal and shows how unfit he is to serve in the nation’s highest office,” DeGette said in a statement to CPR News.

Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen noted that the administration has withheld funding for childcare and disaster recovery, in addition to the cuts that happened after the email was sent.

"Decisions about funding and critical needs for states should never be made based on who supported you in the last election,” she said in a statement to CPR News. “This has long-term consequences for our economy, our well-being and our cost of living.”

CPR News reached out to every member of the Colorado delegation for comment; the others did not respond in time for publication. 

The state’s alleged retaliation lawsuit against Trump started after the administration decided to move the U.S. Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. During a press conference announcing the move, Trump said he did so, in part, because of the state’s mail-in voting.

Attorney General Phil Weiser expanded the suit in January to include the shutting down of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds known as SNAP and the denial of disaster declarations.