Trump calls for disgraced election official linked to his ‘Big Lie’ to be freed – as Colorado officials dig their heels in
The battle over the fate of Tina Peters, a disgraced Colorado elections official who was convicted of felonies related to efforts to interfere with the 2020 election on Donald Trump’s behalf, grew thornier on Sunday with the intervention of the president himself.
Peters, who remains in a Colorado prison after her conviction on seven charges last year, remains adamant that she acted within the bounds of legality and her personal responsibility when she allowed an associate of MyPillow salesman and Trump loyalist Mike Lindell to access a secure room to make a copy of a hard drive containing data from the 2020 presidential election results for the state of Colorado.
This past week the state’s Department of Corrections received a request from the U.S. Justice Department to transfer Peters into federal custody. The reasoning for the request was not explained, nor clear: Peters is not convicted of any federal crimes, as her case was adjudicated at the state level. The request came directly from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of the president’s appointees and his former personal attorney.
Now, it seems the intent of that request is clear: Trump, on Sunday, called for Peters to be freed immediately.
“FREE TINA PETERS, WHO SITS IN A COLORADO PRISON, DYING & OLD, FOR ATTEMPTING TO EXPOSE VOTER FRAUD IN THE RIGGED 2O20 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!!!” wrote Trump in one of his all-caps Truth Social diatribes.
The 70-year-old Peters is suffering from a relapse of health conditions, according to her attorney, while imprisoned. In February, she requested release on bail while she appeals her conviction, citing a decline in mental state and cognitive function, as well as fibromyalgia. She and her allies likely hope to push the case out of state jurisdiction into the hands of federal courts, potentially even the U.S. Supreme Court.
Peters formerly suffered from lung cancer and is still being monitored for recurrence, her attorneys added in that February filing.
Final approval for the transfer ultimately rests in the hands of Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis. He is a Democrat, and the state’s Democratic attorney general has called on Polis to deny the request.
“Tina Peters stands alone as an example of the nefarious actions and outcomes of election denialism,” said Jenna Griswold in a statement on Friday.
“Her deliberate and criminal actions were perpetrated in support of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.” She violated Colorado law and her duty to administer Mesa County elections. She was found guilty of her crimes by a jury of her peers, after an extensive trial. Peters is serving her sentence in state prison for state crimes that harmed her community and violated the trust placed in her office. She is incarcerated because she broke Colorado law.”
The effort by Trump to protect Peters comes just days after his so-called clemency czar, Ed Martin, announced a slate of pardons aimed at protecting other individuals who aided the Trump campaign in its efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He previously threatened the state over Peters’ conviction in August, writing on Truth Social that he’d take “harsh measures” if she wasn’t released.
While those efforts to overturn the election result ultimately failed, and culminated in a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Trump campaign and its allies ordered slates of fake electors in states the president asserted he’d won in the election and sought to have Republican-held state legislatures recognize those false electors and grant them the authority to cast ballots in the Electoral College for Trump, going against the election results in their respective states.
The pardons were granted to those individuals as well as members of Trump’s own legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and others.
A presidential pardon represents both the power of the chief executive as well as its limitations.
