In early March, Donald Trump’s Justice Department raised eyebrows with an unexpected move: The DOJ’s civil division unexpectedly filed a brief in federal court, raising “concerns” about the criminal conviction of a former Colorado clerk named Tina Peters.
The effort didn’t amount to much, but as NBC News reported, the president’s interest in the case has apparently intensified.
In a Truth Social post tonight, Trump called for former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters to be released from prison and said he was directing the Justice Department to take ‘all necessary action’ to help secure her release.
In a bizarre online harangue, Trump rewrote recent history, claiming that Peters simply “worked to expose and document Democrat [sic] Election Fraud.” He added, “Tina is an innocent Political Prisoner being horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. This is a Communist persecution by the Radical Left Democrats to cover up their Election crimes and misdeeds in 2020.”
In case that weren’t quite enough, the president concluded, “I am hereby directing the Department of Justice to take all necessary action to help secure the release of this ‘hostage’ being held in a Colorado prison by the Democrats, for political reasons. FREE TINA PETERS, NOW!”
At this point, some readers might be thinking, “Her name sounds familiar, but I’m not quite sure who Tina Peters is.” So let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
Peters was a county clerk in Colorado who eagerly embraced Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories about his 2020 election defeat, but that’s not all she did. Peters also acted on those lies and conspiracy theories, using someone’s security badge to allow a Mike Lindell associate to access county election equipment.
The apparent point of the endeavor was to leak election machinery data in pursuit of a conspiratorial plot that never existed in reality.
Not surprisingly, Peters was caught and indicted. She pleaded not guilty, but after she and her attorney struggled to present a compelling defense, a Colorado jury convicted Peters, finding her guilty of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
Ahead of sentencing, Peters showed no remorse. A judge ultimately sentenced her to nine years behind bars.
This was a state official, charged with state crimes, by state prosecutors, in a state court, with a state jury, overseen by a state judge, which necessarily means neither the president nor his Justice Department can overturn Peters’ criminal conviction.
But Trump apparently finds that unsatisfying; he wants to free his conspiratorial ally anyway; and he’s willing to make up a series of ridiculous claims about her felonies as part of a public defense, up to and including accusing local prosecutors of overseeing “a Communist persecution.” Time will tell what, if anything, the Justice Department can do about Peters’ incarceration. For all of the hysterical and baseless Republican conspiracy theories during Joe Biden’s presidency about “weaponized” prosecutions and a “two-tiered” justice system, Trump and his team are creating the very conditions the GOP condemned. The incumbent president — through his scandalous pardons, his intervention in cases such as Peters’ and his willingness to sic prosecutors on his perceived political enemies — is going out of his way to make clear that his allies will be held to different legal standards than everyone else. The brazenness is so plainly ridiculous, the Republican administration is hardly even trying to keep up appearances — and there’s every reason to believe this will get worse in the coming days, weeks, months and years. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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