April 17, 2025 03:40 PM UTC

Jeff Crank Inherits Trump Space Command Corruption Dilemma

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Lindsey Toomer reports for Colorado Newsline, the politically fraught years-long struggle over the permanent home of the U.S. Space Command, currently based at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs but threatened with being uprooted and moved to Alabama as a reward for the political loyalty of the state’s elected officials to Donald Trump, is heating up again as Alabama Republicans demand satisfaction and Colorado’s bipartisan delegation pushes back:

Space Command’s final location has been a matter of intense debate between Trump’s first term and former President Joe Biden’s term. Colorado officials expressed concern that Trump’s decision to move headquarters to Alabama was politically motivated, because he waited until after the results of the 2020 election to make a decision. Trump won Alabama, but Biden won Colorado. Space Command reached full operational capacity at Peterson Space Force Base by December 2023 after Biden announced at the end of July 2023 it would stay in Colorado Springs.

Then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall also did not announce a final location decision after the required environmental review in Huntsville was complete, the inspector general report notes. The report says that the Air Force secretary and the then-secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, were not interviewed by the inspector general, as the White House would not make them available without Department of Defense legal counsel present.

“A final location decision by the (Air Force secretary) would have allowed USSPACECOM to begin the process of relocating to (Redstone Arsenal),” the report says. “However, USSPACECOM continued to accelerate its approach of (full-operational capacity) at its provisional HQ location in Colorado Springs.”

The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that freshman Republican Rep. Jeff Crank, who represents El Paso County and its many military installations, is fully aware that the threatened move of Space Command to Alabama has no military purpose–and is therefore a corrupt patronage prize being awarded to that state’s fiercely loyal MAGA Republican majority headed by Sen. “Treasonous” Tommy Tuberville.

But of course Rep. Crank was not able to verbalize the latter part:

U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colorado Springs, was among the lawmakers on a call Thursday morning talking about efforts to keep the command, which is in charge of protecting and defending the area that starts 62 miles above the earth.

“I have asked many of our senior leaders what is the military value of moving Space Command and point-blank they say, there isn’t any,” Crank said.

Speaking to KKTV Colorado Springs, Crank says he is “perplexed” by the continued discussion about moving Space Command to Alabama, as if there was any question about why it remains on the table all these years later:

“Honestly, I’m perplexed by discussions of combatant command re-alignment of any kind,” said Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colorado). “Space Command has achieved full operational capability at Peterson. We cannot afford to weaken the President’s hand and risk delaying Golden Dome while our adversaries are moving at full speed.”

Much like his predecessor Rep. Doug Lamborn, Jeff Crank is cornered by his inability to voice even the slightest personal criticism of Donald Trump, in a situation where the only appropriate response is to directly call out Trump’s corrupt purposes for wanting to move the Space Command to Alabama. Even though Jeff Crank was once an anti-Trump supporter of Nikki Haley, since Crank won the CO-05 primary over the  Trump-endorsed candidate Dave Williams, he has morphed into a full-throated MAGA cheerleader.

Which means than when the bad news comes that Trump is moving Space Command despite the lack of any operational justification, Jeff Crank won’t be calling Trump out in the strong terms the situation merits.

At the end of the day, rewarding red-state loyalists is more important to Trump than Jeff Crank ever was.