Justice Department is reviewing prosecution of Colorado clerk who
supported Trump’s election lies
[March 05, 2025]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and CHRISTINA CASSIDY
DENVER (AP) — The Department of Justice is backing a former county
election clerk in Colorado who was convicted for her role in allowing
supporters of President Donald Trump to access confidential data about
the 2020 election, the latest move by the administration to use its
power to reward allies who violated the law on the president's behalf.
Acting U.S. Assistant Attorney General Yaakov M. Roth submitted a filing
in federal court in Colorado this week supporting a request from former
Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who's asking a federal court to free her
from jail while she appeals her state conviction for the 2021 election
security breach. Roth wrote that “reasonable concerns” have been raised
about Peters' prosecution and that it was among others nationally that
the government was reviewing for “abuses of the criminal justice
process.”
Peters has become a celebrity in the world of those who embrace Trump's
lies that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud. Her supporters have
been pushing the new Republican administration to pressure Colorado's
Democratic governor, Jared Polis, to pardon her.
The intervention by Trump's Justice Department in the Peters case marks
a new stage in the administration's effort to use the federal government
to promote the president's political interests. By getting involved in a
state-level prosecution, in a case filed by an elected Republican
prosecutor in Colorado, the Justice Department is taking an even more
unusual step than it has in previously supporting the president's
agenda.
Previously, Trump pardoned more than a thousand people convicted in the
Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He named an attorney for some
of those defendants, Ed Martin, to be acting U.S. attorney in the
District of Columbia. Martin has since threatened to investigate
Democratic politicians and others who criticize the Trump
administration's cost-cutting efforts. The Department of Justice also
moved to drop corruption charges against New York's Democratic mayor,
Eric Adams, contending that they, too, were tainted by “weaponization”
and that the administration needed Adams' cooperation in its immigration
enforcement efforts.
Mesa County District Attorney Daniel P. Rubinstein, a Republican who has
served in that role since 2015, prosecuted Peters’ case and said nothing
about it was politically motivated.
“In one of the most conservative jurisdictions in Colorado, the same
voters who elected Ms. Peters, also elected the Republican District
Attorney who handled the prosecution, and the all-Republican Board of
County Commissioners who unanimously requested the prosecution of Ms.
Peters on behalf of the citizens she victimized," Rubinstein said in a
statement to The Associated Press. "Ms. Peters was indicted by a grand
jury of her peers, and convicted at trial by the jury of her peers that
she selected.”
Peters' attorney, John Case, was heartened by the news. “Tina was
targeted because she executed her duty under federal law to preserve
election data that the Secretary of State deleted from every other
Colorado county,” Case said. “We welcome the federal investigation.”
The breach of election systems in Mesa County allowed sensitive
information about the county’s voting system, which is used in counties
across the country, to be posted online. Experts have described the
breach as serious, saying it could provide a “practice environment” that
would allow anyone to probe for vulnerabilities that could be exploited
during a future election.
At sentencing, District Judge Matthew Barrett had harsh words for
Peters: “You are no hero. You abused your position, and you’re a
charlatan.”
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Candidate Tina Peters speaks during a debate for the state
leadership position Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, in Hudson, Colo. (AP
Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Peters, 69, was sentenced to nine years. She has argued that she had
a duty to preserve election data before the voting system was
upgraded and that she should not be prosecuted for carrying out her
job. Earlier this year, she filed a last-ditch appeal in federal
court asking a judge to order her released on bail while her appeal
is pending. Her attorneys noted she is being monitored for a
recurrence of lung cancer and say she has lost weight and has
experienced memory problems while she's incarcerated.
On Tuesday, Peters was still being held in Larimer County jail, 60
miles (about 95 kilometers) north of Denver. She is serving a
six-month sentence for a misdemeanor before she will be transferred
to a state prison to serve a sentence of more than eight years in
the voting machine case, according to the federal court filing.
In the federal government's filing in the case, made Monday, Roth
said Peters had received an “exceptionally lengthy sentence imposed
relative to the conduct at issue” and urged the federal judge to
consider Peters’ request to be released pending her court appeals.
In explaining why the Justice Department was reviewing Peters’ case,
Roth said the agency planned to evaluate whether the state
prosecution was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than
toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental
objectives.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who is the
state’s top election official, criticized the Justice Department's
actions related to the Peters' case as a way to "normalize fake
election conspiracies.
“Shame on them for weaponizing the legal system to push their
election lies,” she said.
Among those advocating on Peters’ behalf is MyPillow CEO Mike
Lindell, a Trump ally who has called for voting machines to be
banned and who visited the White House recently. Lindell has long
supported Peters, and in recent weeks has been sending emails
calling for her release, saying she is a victim of the “election
fraud Uniparty.”
Lawrence Norden, an election security expert at the Brennan Center
for Justice, said the case against Peters was “an open and shut case
of official misconduct.”
“The statements from the Department of Justice, coming after the
administration has dismantled a number of federal guardrails to
protect the integrity of our elections, sends a terrible message to
election officials and the broader community about where the
administration stands on election security,” Norden said.
Trump's administration has taken several steps to weaken election
security since the president returned to power. In recent weeks, the
Department of Homeland Security has paused all election-related work
and placed on leave at least 17 staffers who have worked on election
security at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency pending a review. It was also ending its involvement in a
voluntary program that shared information with and provided
cybersecurity resources to state and local election officials.
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Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.
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