Trump’s Justice Department throws lifeline to GOP clerk in prison for 2020 election tampering
Candidate Tina Peters speaks during a debate for the state leadership position in February 2023 in Hudson
By Marshall Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is going to bat for an avowed election denier who’s in prison for tampering with Colorado voting machines after the 2020 election.
In a highly unorthodox court filing, senior Justice Department officials encouraged a federal judge to consider releasing former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters from state prison, saying that “reasonable concerns” have been raised about the case and that it’s reviewing whether the state prosecution against Peters was motivated by a desire to inflict “political pain.”
This is the latest example of the Trump administration wielding federal powers to go after the president’s opponents or to rush to support an ally – even though there’s no public evidence of partisan wrongdoing in Peters’ case.
Peters was found guilty last year of participating in a data-breach scheme that hoped to prove Trump’s false claims of mass voter fraud in 2020. She was sentenced to nine years in prison and is currently at the Larimer County Detention Center.
Peters’ lawyers filed a petition in federal court last month that asked a judge to release her because they believe her constitutional rights were violated. They argued that she should be free while appealing her conviction, and that the judge gave her an overly severe prison term and violated her rights at sentencing by calling her “a charlatan” who “cannot help but lie.”
But it’s extremely rare for the Justice Department to step into a state case like this, and it’s unclear what federal officials can do to scrutinize a state prosecution of state crimes.
Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Civil Division, submitted a brief in Peters’ federal case saying the Justice Department was concerned about the judge’s comments and the “exceptionally lengthy sentence imposed relative to the conduct at issue.”
Another point of concern for federal prosecutors is whether the decision to deny Peters bail while she appeals her sentence “was arbitrary or unreasonable” under the US Constitution.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. The Colorado attorney general’s office also declined to comment. It has previously said Peters’ conviction was crucial to protecting democracy because the 2020 data breach, as well as her nonstop lying about voting machines, “put the safety of our elections … at risk.”
“Ms. Peters was gratified to learn about the DOJ filing,” her lawyer Patrick McSweeney told CNN. “The judge and the prosecution proceeded with the avowed purpose of punishing her for her views on the verified concerns about the unreliability of computerized voting systems.”
The-CNN-Wire
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