DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday commuted the sentence of election conspiracy theorist Tina Peters following pressure from President Trump, the latest instance of the president using his influence to reward those who echoed his baseless claims of mass fraud as the cause of his 2020 election loss.
Trump has championed the case of Peters, a 70-year-old former county clerk who was sentenced to nine years behind bars after being convicted in a scheme to make a copy of her county’s election computer system. She will be released June 1.
In April, a Colorado appeals court upheld her conviction but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud, a decision that Polis praised.
In a letter to Peters, Polis wrote that she was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes,” the governor wrote.
He added that Peters’ application “demonstrates taking responsibility for your crimes, and a commitment to follow the law going forward.”
Trump posted around the time of the announcement on his social media platform: “FREE TINA!”
‘Affront to the rule of law’
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold criticized the decision by the governor — a fellow Democrat — saying that “it was a dark day for democracy” and that ”selling out our state’s justice system for Trump is an affront to the rule of law.”
“A clear message is being sent to those willing to break the law and attack democracy for the president — they will likely not face consequences for their actions,” Griswold said at a news conference.
Peters has been serving her sentence at a prison in Pueblo after being convicted in 2024 by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump.
Peters sneaked in an outside computer expert, an associate of MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — a fellow election denier — to make a copy of her county’s Dominion Voting Systems election computer server as state officials updated it in 2021. Peters joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof of election rigging, after which video and photos of the update, including passwords, were posted online.
After the commutation announcement, Peters issued a statement through her attorney thanking Polis and apologizing.
“Five years ago I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong,” Peters said. “I have learned and grown during my time in prison and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.”
She also condemned threats and violence against voters, county clerks and election workers.
Gubernatorial candidates weigh in
Polis is ineligible to seek reelection due to term limits, and the candidates running to succeed him weighed in on his decision.
Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat in the race, said that he vehemently disagreed with the commutation and that Peters knowingly broke the law, undermined elections and was convicted by a jury.
“Lawlessness only breeds more lawlessness,” Bennet said. “With President Trump continuing to attack Colorado, we must do everything we can to stand strong for our institutions and the rule of law.”
A Republican candidate, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, said she would have preferred that the trial judge revisit Peters’ sentence as ordered by the appeals court before the governor considered any commutation.
“A commutation or pardon by a governor should be reserved for truly extraordinary circumstances,” Kirkmeyer wrote in a statement. “The governor has a responsibility to apply justice fairly, consistently, and without bias.”
Trump’s influence
Peters was convicted of state, not federal, crimes, which put her beyond the reach of Trump’s pardon power, which he used to free those convicted of crimes for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. So the president championed her cause through the media.
Trump has lambasted both Polis, calling him a “Scumbag Governor,” and the Republican district attorney who prosecuted her, Daniel Rubinstein, for keeping Peters in prison. He has referred to Peters as “elderly” and “sick.” Earlier this year, Trump uninvited Polis from a White House meeting with governors over the case.
The president had said Colorado was “suffering a big price” for refusing to release her. His administration has been choking off funds, ending federal programs and denying disaster aid. It also announced the dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocated the U.S. Space Command from the state to Alabama.
Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Assn., said the commutation “signals that it is open season on our election and election officials.”
“Gov. Polis is bending the knee to the same political voices and conspiracy theories that are undermining belief in our democratic institutions,” Crane said. “This is now Gov. Polis’ legacy. He will not be able to run from it.”
Peters’ health
Peters’ lawyers have said her health has declined in prison. Peters, who had part of her right lung removed in 2017, started coughing frequently after the prison’s heating system was turned on for the winter and has had trouble sleeping due to chronic pain from fibromyalgia, her lawyers said.
In January, Peters was involved in a scuffle with another inmate but was found not guilty of assault following a prison disciplinary hearing, Colorado Department of Corrections spokesperson Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said. Peters was found guilty of being in a location without authorization.
The federal Bureau of Prisons tried but failed to get Peters moved to a federal prison. In January, Polis said he was considering granting clemency for Peters, calling her sentence “unusual and harsh“ for a first-time, nonviolent offender. In March he repeated those arguments in a lengthy post on the social media platform X.
Polis defended his decision Friday in a social media post.
“I’ll always stand for free speech and to make sure that we live in a country that no matter what your viewpoints are, you are not incarcerated longer because of them,” Polis said.
In contrast to some other Democratic governors, Polis, who portrays himself as a political iconoclast, has at times taken an accommodating stance toward Trump. Though he criticized the president’s tariff and immigration policies, the governor praised earlier moves by Trump such as creating the Department of Government Efficiency, which was run by billionaire Elon Musk, and the choice of vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
Slevin and Riccardi write for the Associated Press. AP writers Ali Swenson in New York, Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed to this report.
The post Colorado governor commutes election denier Tina Peters’ sentence after Trump pressure appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
