Colorado Governor Grants Clemency to Pro-Trump Election Denier Tina Peters

Larry Robinson/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP

Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) granted Tina Peters clemency on Friday, reducing the sentence for the pro-Trump county clerk convicted on charges related to tampering with election equipment.

President Donald Trump has attacked Polis relentlessly and punished Colorado as part of a pressure campaign to get Polis to pardon Peters, who broke the law when trying to prove Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Peters was sentenced to 9 years in prison and will effectively have her sentence cut in half as Polis has ordered her to be released on parole June 1.

The judge who sentenced Peters savaged her for her behavior in the court, fuming during the sentencing, “I’m convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as a defendant as this court has ever seen. There are many things in my mind that are crystal clear about this case. You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

Peters’s conviction stemmed from her participation in a plot to break into election machines under her supervision and copy data from them to prove fraud — instead voter information from the machines appeared online in August 2021, published in part by QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theorists like Ron Watkins.

“She, because of her incorrect and unpopular speech, got an unduly harsh sentence,” Polis said on Friday in an interview with The Colorado Sun, defending his controversial decision by saying Peters’s sentence was “very harsh.”

“I’m not pardoning her. I publicly have said very early on I would not even consider a pardon. She’s a convicted felon. She deserves to be a convicted felon. She will remain a convicted felon,” Polis added

Peters’s lack of remorse for her crimes had been a sticking point for any potential pardon. Polis told the Sun on Friday that Peters had changed her tune and read from her pardon application, “I made mistakes four years ago. I misled the secretary of state when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong. Going forward, I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.”

Trump had previously granted Peters a federal pardon, which carried no weight given that Peters was tried and convicted under state law.

The Republican district attorney, Dan Rubinstein, who tried and convicted Peters, said last year he had no regrets about Peters’s sentence and slammed her for trying to kick a cop while being detained. “I’m the sort of Republican that believes that you respect law enforcement. You don’t kick at cops, you follow the law. And if the law says you don’t lie to people to manipulate their decisions, then that’s a crime. And if you go about things the right way. The law is to be respected, which means you go to court and you ask a judge to intervene and do something,” Rubinstein said.

This is a breaking story and has been updated.

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