June 02, 2026 10:05 AM UTC

Federal Judge Halts Trump's "Arbitrary, Capricious" NCAR Revenge

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Sun’s Michael Booth reports, the Trump administration’s decision to close Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for reasons of political revenge and science denial has been stopped cold by a federal judge:

A federal judge in Denver on Monday blocked federal officials from breaking up Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research by handing over a renowned supercomputing center to the University of Wyoming, in a 38-page injunction raking the Trump administration for enacting political revenge on Colorado.

Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued an injunction because the National Science Foundation divesting the supercomputing center was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” according to the ruling. Jackson said his injunction was necessary because the lawsuit filed in March by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, or UCAR, was likely to succeed, and that too much damage had already been done to the supercomputing center’s operations…

In his ruling halting the transfer of NCAR’s supercomputer facility to the University of Wyoming, Judge R. Brooke Jackson laid out the retaliatory timeline, tying the decision to break up NCAR directly to the incarceration of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters:

“No action followed until President Trump publicly criticized Governor Polis for refusing to release Ms. Peters after his own pardon did not achieve that result. The next day, (Office of Management and Budget) Director (Russell) Vought publicly announced the breakup of NCAR on social media,” Jackson wrote. (Trump could not legally pardon Peters because she was convicted on state charges; only Polis could pardon her or commute her sentence.)

“The Court finds that UCAR is likely to succeed on its claim that NSF’s decision to divest it of stewardship” over the supercomputing center violated federal procedures.

On the one hand, Tina Peters is no longer a friction point in the relationship between the Trump administration and Colorado. On the other hand, we’ve been successfully fighting off Trump’s acts of retaliation in court at basically every step. Gov. Jared Polis’ decision to commute Peters’ sentence was ostensibly based on the court of appeals ruling that her sentence was too harsh, but Trump’s campaign of revenge against the state was the subtext that tainted the outcome. Mitchell Byers at Axios writes:

[The judge] noted the breakup announcement came shortly after Trump called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis a “weak and pathetic man” over the state’s initial refusal to release former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters…

For Colorado officials, the injunction is more than a procedural win; it’s the strongest judicial rebuke of Trump’s actions against Colorado. [Pols emphasis]

Regardless of what happened with Tina Peters, let the record show that Colorado is beating back Trump’s lawless campaign of retaliation against our state where it matters most. And that’s not new: this is just the latest in a series of judicial decisions checking the worst of Trump’s adverse decisions affecting Colorado since his return to office.

Does that add to the frustration over Peters walking free? Immeasurably.

But the institutions Trump threatened over Peters are worth far more in the long run.

With any luck, they’ll still be standing in Colorado when Trump and Tina Peters are history.