A federal judge has shut down Colorado clerk Tina Peters’ latest bid to avoid state prison — at least for now.
On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak refused to release a former Colorado clerk who was convicted of attempting to breach voting systems in hopes of proving Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020.
Peters, 70, is serving a nine-year sentence imposed in October 2024 after a state jury convicted her for her role in a scheme that allowed unauthorized access to Mesa County’s election equipment and data — a move that state officials said compromised election security and forced costly mitigation and replacement steps.
Peters filed a lawsuit seeking her release earlier this year, arguing that her free speech rights had been violated, but Judge Scott Varholak rejected the move.
“Ms. Peters raises important constitutional questions concerning whether the trial court improperly punished her more severely because of her protected First Amendment speech,” Varholak wrote. “But because this question remains pending before Colorado courts, this Court must abstain from answering that question until after the Colorado courts have decided the issue.”
Politically, Peters has become a symbol — especially in the long shadow of 2020, when distrust in election administration turned into lawsuits, audits, threats against election workers, and a national fight over what “election integrity” should mean going forward. Peters’ defenders argue she was trying to expose weaknesses; the state argued she helped execute a breach, not a reform plan.
Peters, the only Trump ally to face prison time for 2020 election denial, has received significant support from the president.
Trump has made her cause personal. In May, he blasted Colorado’s handling of the case: “Tina is an innocent Political Prisoner…” he wrote, calling her punishment “Cruel and Unusual Punishment,” and urging Colorado to end what he called an unjust incarceration.
“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. The same Democrat Party that flies to El Salvador to try to free an MS-13 Terrorist, is cruelly imprisoning, perhaps for life, a grandmother whose brave and heroic son gave his life for America,” he wrote on Truth Social in May.
“Colorado must end this unjust incarceration of an innocent American,” he added.
However, Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice have limited leverage in the matter because Peters was convicted of state crimes.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) has said he would not issue a pardon for Peters or participate in “any scheme to prevent her from being held accountable under Colorado law.”
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Colorado was lost to the Democrat Communists decades ago.