Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters was indicted in March 2022 on election interference charges.
According to the indictment, she violated security protocols in her efforts to prove that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
This week, Trump announced that he had pardoned Peters, but there is a catch, and it is a big one.
Peters was indicted on 13 counts, which, according to the Denver Gazette.
They included “three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one felony count of criminal impersonation and one felony identity theft charge, and two felony conspiracy charges.”
At the time, the 21st Judicial District Attorney, Dan Rubinstein, and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser jointly announced, “Yesterday, the Mesa County grand jury returned an indictment after the presentation of evidence in an ongoing investigation into the alleged election system breach in Mesa County.”
The statement continued, “The grand jury, randomly selected from the same pool of citizens that elected Clerk Tina Peters and chosen months before any of these alleged offenses occurred, concluded there is probable cause that Clerk Peters and Deputy Clerk Knisley committed crimes.”
This week, Trump posted to Truth Social that he was going to pardon Peters in the case.
He posted, “Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections."
Trump continued, “Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”
But there is one problem… Trump does not have the authority to pardon her because this was a state crime, not a federal one.
After Trump made his announcement, Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state, broke the news to everyone celebrating the Peters pardon.
She stated, “Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers for state crimes in a state court.”
Griswold continued, “Trump has no constitutional authority to pardon her. His assault is not just on our democracy, but on states’ rights and the American Constitution.”
There was more bad news for Peters, as she had hoped to be set free pending her appeal, but a judge in Denver declined her motion, saying the state courts would decide her fate. So, she will remain in jail even amid the goodwill gesture from Trump.
