{"id":103847,"date":"2025-12-21T15:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103847\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T15:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:13:09","slug":"trump-issues-a-phony-pardon-for-election-fraudster-tina-peters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103847\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump issues a phony pardon for election fraudster Tina Peters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Just in time for the holidays<\/a>, President Trump has issued another of his dubious pardons<\/a>. Or rather, make that a \u201cpardon.\u201d<\/p>\n

This one comes on behalf of a former Colorado elections<\/a> official serving a nine-year sentence<\/a> for election fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure our elections were fair and honest,\u201d Trump said in a typically gaseous, dissembling post <\/a>on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cTina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the \u2018crime\u2019 of demanding Honest Elections,\u201d the president went on. \u201cToday I am granting Tina a full pardon for her attempts to expose voter fraud in the rigged 2020 Presidential Election<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, Peters\u2019 crime was conspiring to let an unauthorized person<\/a> access voting equipment as part of a nutty scheme to \u201cprove\u201d the November 2020 balloting was bogus<\/a>, then lying and covering up her illegal actions.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s not likely to leave jail anytime soon.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Trump has precisely zero say over Peters\u2019 fate, given the former Mesa County elections chief was convicted on state charges. The president\u2019s pardon power \u2014 which Trump has twisted to a snapping point<\/a> \u2014 extends only to federal cases. If we\u2019re going to play make-believe, then perhaps Foo-Foo the Snoo<\/a> can personally escort Peters from prison and crown her Queen of the Rockies.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to suggest, however, that Trump\u2019s empty gesture was harmless. (Apologies to Foo-Foo and Dr. Seuss.)<\/p>\n

Some extremists, ever ready to do Trump\u2019s malevolent bidding, have taken up Peters\u2019 cause, using the same belligerent language that foreshadowed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol<\/a>. In fact, threats have come from some of the very same thugs whom Trump pardoned in one of the first shameless acts <\/a>of his presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWE THE PEOPLE ARE COMING TO BREAK TINA PETERS OUT OF PRISON IN 45 DAYS,\u201d Jake Lang, a rioter who was charged with attacking police with an aluminum baseball bat, said on social media. \u201cIf Tina M. Peters is not released from La Vista Prison in Colorado to Federal Authorities by January 31st, 2026; US MARSHALS & JANUARY 6ERS PATRIOTS WILL BE STORMING IN TO FREE TINA!!\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

(Capitalization and random punctuation are apparently the way to show fervency as well as prove one\u2019s MAGA bona fides<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group whom Trump also pardoned<\/a>, shared a screenshot of the president\u2019s social media post. \u201cA battle,\u201d Tarrio said, \u201cis coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pretend pardon is not the first intervention on Peters\u2019 behalf. <\/p>\n

In March, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to free her from prison, saying there were \u201creasonable concerns\u201d about the length of Peters\u2019 sentence. The judge declined.<\/p>\n

In November, the administration wrote the Colorado Department of Corrections and asked that Peters be transferred to federal custody, which would presumably allow for her release. No go.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, apparently looking to up the pressure, the Justice Department announced an investigation of the state\u2019s prison system. (Perhaps Peters was denied the special \u201cmagnetic mattress\u201d she requested at her sentencing, to help deal with sleep issues.)<\/p>\n

Like any child, when Trump doesn\u2019t get his way he calls people names. On Monday, he set his sights on Colorado\u2019s Democratic governor, Jared Polis<\/a> \u2014 \u201ca weak and pathetic man\u201d \u2014 for refusing to spring Peters from state prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe criminals from Venezuela took over sections of Colorado,\u201d Trump said, \u201cand he was afraid to do anything, but he puts Tina in jail for nine years because she caught people cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only true part of that statement is that Colorado does, in fact, exist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Trump portrays Peters as a martyr, she is nothing of the sort. <\/p>\n

As Polis noted in response to Trump\u2019s \u201cpardon,\u201d she was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and convicted by a jury of her peers \u2014 a jury, it should be noted, that was drawn from the citizenry of Mesa County. The place is no liberal playpen. Voters in the rugged enclave on Colorado\u2019s Western Slope<\/a> backed Trump all three times he ran for president, by margins approaching 2-to-1.<\/p>\n

If Peters\u2019 sentence seems harsh \u2014 which it does \u2014 hear what the judge had to say. <\/p>\n

Peters was motivated not by principle or a search for the truth but rather, he suggested, vanity and personal aggrandizement. She betrayed the public trust and eroded faith in an honestly run election to ingratiate herself with Trump and others grifting off his Big Lie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are as privileged as they come and you used that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame,\u201d Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters in a lacerating lecture. \u201cYou\u2019re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that\u2019s been proven to be junk time and time again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters remains unrepentant.<\/p>\n

In petitioning Trump for a pardon, her attorney submitted nine pages of cockamamie claims, asserting that Peters was the victim of a conspiracy involving, among others, voting-machine vendors<\/a>, Colorado\u2019s secretary of state and the Venezuelan government. <\/p>\n

To her credit, Peters has rejected calls for violence to set her free.<\/p>\n

\u201cTina categorically DENOUNCES and REJECTS any statements or OPERATIONS, public or private, involving a \u2018prison break\u2019 or use of force against La Vista or any other CDOC facility in any way,\u201d a post on social media stated, again with the random capitalization.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the parole board will take note of those sentiments when the 70-year-old Peters becomes eligible for conditional release in January 2029, a date that just happens to coincide with the end of Trump\u2019s term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Which seems fitting.<\/p>\n

Keep Peters locked up until then, serving as an example and deterrent to others who might consider emulating her by vandalizing the truth and attacking our democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Just in time for the holidays, President Trump has issued another of his dubious pardons. Or rather, make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[551,56389,56390,48,52,51,47,50,49,56391,1594,592,46747,3020,4412,225,315,56388,56392,56387,8843],"class_list":["post-103847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-prison","tag-dubious-pardon","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nine-year-sentence","tag-other","tag-people","tag-peters","tag-president-trump","tag-social-medium","tag-state","tag-time","tag-tina","tag-tina-peters","tag-trump-issue","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}