This 70-year-old whistleblower is serving 9 years in prison - Can Pam Bondi help?

Tina Peters was once the Clerk and Recorder of Mesa County Colorado, and was in charge of county elections. Now she is serving a 9-year term in a Colorado prison. Her crime? She identified the unauthorized destruction of voter information that took place in two consecutive county elections: the November 2020 election and a local election held in early 2021. In each case, she found irrefutable evidence showing that the election database had been removed and subsequently reinstalled, minus information needed to identify the voter intent of thousands of ballots.

Peters, who is a matronly gold star mother, was concerned after 3 conservatives lost in a local election, despite the county having far more Republicans than Democrats. Due to a pending software update, the election database would soon be altered. For that reason, Peters asked her IT department to make a backup copy of the database. When they refused, Peters decided to take independent action. That action involved legal infractions that gave Colorado and local officials the excuse they needed to wage despicable lawfare. Here is the background.

Tina Peters asked an outside computer technician to make a database copy, and that copy ended up in the hands of two established IT experts. (It is not clear who gave it to them.) After the experts examined the database in minute detail, they issued an 87-page technical report with shocking revelations that have never been refuted. Here is an excerpt from the report, which was prepared by Walter Daugherity and Jeffrey O’Donnell:

“There was an unauthorized creation of new election databases during early voting in the 2020 General Election on October 21, 2020, followed by the digital reloading of 20,346 ballot records into the new election databases, making the original voter intent recorded from the ballots unknown. In addition, 5,567 ballots in 58 batches did not have their digital records copied to the new database, although the votes from the ballots in those batches were recorded in the Main election database” (Report, p. 3)

For granting “unauthorized access” to the database, Tina Peters was indicted on March 9, 2022 on a slew of overlapping charges. The felony charges include attempting to influence a public servant, identity theft, criminal impersonation and conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. The misdemeanors include first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.

The county district attorney, Dan Rubinstein, did not dispute a single point in the 87-page technical report, and he even acknowledged that “[f]urther investigation would be required to determine if...election records as required by statute” are gone forever. (Yes Dan, they are gone forever — a fact that we now know because of the courageous actions taken by Tina Peters.) Nevertheless, in a state that has become rabidly to the left of California, the DA probably did what he had to (politically speaking).

A jury found Peters guilty and, in October 2024, she was sentenced to 9 years in state prison, where she now sits. Keep in mind that Tina Peters did not profit from this matter in any way, and did not act with malice. Further, her concerns proved to be well founded. Indeed, the database had been altered, and voter information for two elections has been lost forever.

The judge, Democrat Matthew Barrett, decided that tough action was required because Tina Peter’s actions were “just as bad, if not worse, than the physical violence that this court sees on an all too regular basis.” I guess that gang members from Colorado’s chapter of Tren de Aragua have yet to appear in Judge Barrett’s court room.

Enter Attorney General Pam Bondi

28 U.S.C. §2254 provides potential relief to victims of overzealous state and local courts, and the attorneys for Tina Peters filed an application for relief under that federal statute. The response from the Bondi Justice Department has been very positive. In a “STATEMENT OF INTEREST OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” Acting Assistant AG Yaajiv N, Roth informed a United States district court that

“...the concerns raised in the Application warrant—at the very least—prompt and careful consideration by this Court (and, at the appropriate time, the Colorado appellate courts).”

The DOJ statement also references a broader review of legal abuses, nationwide, triggered by President Trump’s Executive Order 14147, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” In a memo issued by Attorney General Bondi, there is a list of other cases subject to review. Those cases include the lawfare waged by Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg, and cases involving the “...criminal prosecution of legitimate whistleblowers.”

Tina Peters would fit nicely in that category. She is a legitimate whistleblower who sits in prison—a victim of aggressive lawfare waged by overzealous partisans.