The Department of Justice announced in a March 3 court filing that it will conduct a “review” of Colorado’s prosecution of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County election clerk convicted in connection with her efforts to prove election software had been tampered with in the 2020 election.
Colorado Attorney General Philip Weister is none too pleased.
Weister called the DOJ’s move “a naked, political attempt to threaten or intimidate either this Court or the attorneys that prosecuted this matter.”
This, the DOJ suggests, is the pot calling the kettle black. Before President Donald Trump’s speech Friday at the Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche specifically mentioned the Peters case as an example of law fare and the weaponization of the justice system that the department is investigating.
In a two-page “Statement of Interest” filing connected to Peters’ pending lawsuit against Colorado, U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth said DOJ wants to review “in particular, whether the case was ‘oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.’”
“Reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’ case,” Roth said. “These concerns relate to, among other things, the exceptionally lengthy sentence imposed relative to the conduct at issue.”
Despite having no criminal record, the 70-year-old Gold Star Mom was sentenced to nine full years in prison in August 2024. By comparison, manslaughter in Colorado will get you 2 to 6 years in the slammer.
Peters was found guilty of three felony counts of breaching Mesa County’s election systems during a 2021 security update. More specifically, a Peters associate backed up the election data to preserve what the election clerk considered evidence of system vulnerabilities and election fraud before it could be wiped away by a software update.
After her sentencing, Peters released three reports on what her investigators found when examining the election data.
Among the many findings:
“Destruction of Election-Related Data, specifically critical log files, has occurred” in violation of the law.
“Uncertified software was used on the system rendering the certification of the entire system all all elections conducted with it, Invalid.”
“Security protections required by law were almost completely absent.”
“Violates Voting Systems Standards (“VSS”) which expressly mandate prevention of the ability to “change calculated vote totals.”
The reports laid out how the Mesa County system is “configured with 36 wireless devices, which represents an extreme and unnecessary vulnerability, and which may be exploited to obtain unauthorized access from external devices, networks, and the internet.”
Put just these four findings together, and Peters tried to make the case the Mesa County election system was wide open to outside interference, security protections were virtually non-existent, standards to prevent the changing of vote totals were being violated, and data and critical log files were deleted after the fact.
Peters continues to insist backing up election records fit within her responsibilities as county clerk, telling former Trump adviser Steve Bannon two years ago that the backup was “lawful and required by federal and state law. It has no PII or Personal Identifiable Information of Voters.”
Still, 21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett brought the hammer down on Peters, claiming she caused “immeasurable damage” to local elections and to trust in the election system.
Despite Weister accusing the DOJ of “politicizing” the case, Judge Barrett demonstrated the unhinged rhetoric and legal decision-making that one has come to expect from leftist judges in cases involving Trump or the 2020 election. Barrett declared Peters a “charlatan” for pushing the “lie” of fraud in the 2020 election, comparing her action to “physical violence that this court sees on an all-too-regular basis.”
“I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could. You are a privileged person. You are as privileged as they come. You used that for power and fame,” Barrett said when giving Peters — what given her age — may well be a life sentence.
Indeed, last week, Peters supporters sent out an urgent message, claiming she is in rapidly declining health and suffering abuse in prison. A claim the DOJ cited in their filing.
Others on X are pleading with Trump to pardon Peters. However, since she was convicted in state court rather than federal court, a presidential pardon is off the table.
Her case is currently on appeal in the Colorado Court of Appeals. In February, Peters’ lawyers filed a Writ of Habeas Corpus asking that she be released on bail pending the outcome of that appeal, due to her failing health.
