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President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his calls to free Tina Peters, a pro-Trump campaign worker who was convicted for her role in a program aimed at finding evidence of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Peters, a former election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, is serving a nine-year prison sentence following his conviction in August 2024 on seven counts, including four counts, related to security breaches in the 2021 voting system as he sought evidence to support Trump’s allegations that his loss to former President Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.
Trump has been pressuring Gov. Jared Polis of the Democratic Alliance to release Peters, 70, since he returned to the White House last year.
“Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year prison sentence in Colorado by the Democratic governor, Jared Polis, and the corrupt political machine, for exposing the fraud committed by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “Again, release Tina!”
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President Donald Trump continued his calls to free Tina Peters. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
Polis acknowledged that Peters’ sentence was “difficult,” because he had no prior criminal record.
The governor recently noted on social media that Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, while a former state attorney who was convicted of the same crime was only sentenced to probation and community service.
“Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied equally, you never know when you might need to lean on the law. This is the context I use as I consider cases like this that have different sentencing,” Polis wrote in X.
But Polis said his decision on leniency will be influenced by whether Peters has expressed remorse for his actions – something officials say he has not done.
“What he will have to show in any successful pardon application would be proper remorse, an apology. That’s what I will be looking for,” he told KUSA-TV.
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President Donald Trump has been pressuring Gov. Jared Polis to free Peters since he returned to the White House last year. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office helped prosecute Peters, insisted he has shown no remorse for his actions.
“Sympathy should be based on remorse, rehabilitation, and extenuating circumstances — not political influence, favor, or revenge,” said Weiser, a Democrat running to succeed the term-limited Polis.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is also hoping to succeed Governor Polis, similarly said Peters should not receive a pardon or commuted sentence.
“Donald Trump may want revenge in Colorado, but giving in to his political pressure will not make our country stronger or safer,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly defended Peters on social media and announced last year that he would grant him a “full pardon,” although the move would not apply to a conviction, as that authority rests with the governor.
Earlier this week, a federal judge found that the Trump administration had threatened to withhold funding from Colorado, citing it as potential retaliation for the state’s refusal to pardon Peter. The findings came after Trump announced a symbolic pardon.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Tina Peters on social media. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
US District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that the US Department of Agriculture’s threat in December to withhold millions of dollars in Colorado’s federal SNAP funding violated the US Constitution’s Repeal Clause.
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“This massive document gives the game away; the pilot project seems to be about punishment and nothing else,” wrote the judge.
The lawsuit also said this week the Trump administration targeted the climate and climate research lab as a way to retaliate against Colorado officials for arresting Peters.
Anders Hagstrom of Fox News contributed to this report.
