President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his calls to release Tina Peters, a pro-Trump election worker who was convicted for her role in a scheme aimed at finding evidence of election fraud in the president’s 2020 election loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peters, a former election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, is serving a nine-year prison sentence following her August 2024 conviction on seven charges, including four felonies, related to a 2021 security breach of the county’s voting systems as she sought evidence to support Trump’s claims that his loss to former President Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has been pressuring Democrat Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters, 70, since he returned to the White House last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year death sentence in a Colorado prison by a Democrat governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing fraud by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “Again, free Tina!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polis has acknowledged that Peters’ sentence was “harsh,” given that she had no prior criminal record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor recently noted on social media that Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, while a former state lawmaker convicted of the same crime was sentenced only to probation and community service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law. This is the context I am using as I consider cases like this that have sentencing disparities,” Polis wrote on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Polis said his decision about granting clemency would be influenced by whether Peters has expressed remorse for her actions \u2014 something officials say she has not done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What she would have to show in any successful clemency application would be appropriate contrition, apology. That\u2019s the kind of thing I would be looking for,” he previously told KUSA-TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office helped prosecute Peters, has emphasized that she has not demonstrated any remorse for her actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Clemency should be based on remorse, rehabilitation, and extenuating circumstances \u2014 not on political influence, favor, or retribution,” said Weiser, a Democrat running to succeed the term-limited Polis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is also hoping to replace Polis as governor, similarly said Peters should not receive a pardon or have her sentence commuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Donald Trump may be seeking revenge on Colorado, but surrendering to his political pressure will not make our state stronger or safer,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has repeatedly defended Peters on social media and announced last year he was granting her a “full pardon,” though such a move would not apply to a state conviction, as that authority rests with the governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this week, a federal judge found that the Trump administration had threatened to withhold funding from Colorado, describing it as potential retribution for the state’s reluctance to pardon Peters. The finding came shortly after Trump’s symbolic pardon announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threat in December to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding to Colorado\u2019s SNAP program violated the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This larger context gives the game away; the pilot project seems to be about punishment and nothing more,” the judge wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lawsuit also claimed this week that the Trump administration targeted a climate and weather research lab as retribution against Colorado officials for imprisoning Peters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n