President Donald Trump renewed his call Monday for the release of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence in Colorado for charges related to election equipment tampering after the 2020 election. Speaking during a press conference on immigration and drug trafficking, Trump sharply criticized Colorado Governor Jared Polis and claimed Peters is being unfairly punished.
“The governor of Colorado is a weak and pathetic man who was run by Tren de Aragua,” Trump stated. “The criminals from Venezuela took over sections of Colorado. And he was afraid to do anything, but he puts Tina in jail for nine years because she caught people cheating.”
Trump added that Governor Polis refuses to release Peters from what he called a “high-intensity jail.” The former president has repeatedly described Peters as a whistleblower and a victim of political persecution. In May, he ordered the Department of Justice to intervene and help secure her release, calling her incarceration “unjust.”
Tina Peters, 70, was convicted by a jury last year on seven charges stemming from her actions following the 2020 election. She was found guilty of allowing an unauthorized individual to access and copy data from Mesa County’s election equipment. The charges included three felony counts of attempting to influence a public official and four misdemeanor counts. She was acquitted of three additional charges.
Despite the state-level nature of Peters’ conviction, President Trump announced last week that he intends to grant her a “full pardon,” a move that has sparked legal debate. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser responded, calling the idea of a federal pardon for a state conviction a constitutional overreach with no legal precedent.
Weiser stated that the president “has no authority to interfere” with state criminal justice matters, emphasizing state sovereignty under the Constitution. Meanwhile, the Colorado Democratic Party defended the prosecution, declaring, “Nobody is above the law—not even Trump’s friends.”
As of now, Peters remains incarcerated in Colorado.
