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A Colorado county clerk convicted in a pro-Trump 2020 election denial scheme was threatened and attacked in prison, her lawyer says.
Tina Peters, 70, is serving a nine-year sentence on state charges in Colorado. Her attorney, Peter Ticktin, says she has been violently attacked by fellow inmates on three separate occasions. Ticktin made the claim in a Saturday letter addressed to President Donald Trump, who has expressed keen interest in the case.
“About 6 months ago, Mrs. Peters was threatened with harm. Her life was threatened by a group of inmates, to stab her and to kill her. This was reported to the FBI and DOJ, which had agents interview her. She was moved to a different unit,” Ticktin wrote.
“In the new unit, she was attacked by other prisoners three times in different locations where guards had to pull inmates off of her,” the letter continued. “There is actually a safe unit where inmates who do not cause problems can be assigned. She has applied to be put into that unit but was denied six times without a valid reason.”
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Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is serving a nine-year sentence in a Colorado prison. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
Ticktin went on to argue that Trump has the power to pardon Peters despite her being convicted of state-level crimes.
“The reason that many pundits opine that you have only the power to grant pardons for federal offenses is that we all understand the ‘United States’ to be the federal government of our country,” he wrote, referring to the text of the pardon power in the Constitution.
“We have one country, and it is called the ‘United States,'” he added before making a lengthy argument about the phrasing of the pardon power.
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Peters’ lawyer argues that President Donald Trump has the authority to pardon her, despite being convicted on state charges. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison after a state jury convicted her of participating in a scheme to breach the Mesa County voting systems following the 2020 elections. 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 on Monday.
Peters is the only Trump ally to face prison time for 2020 election denial, and she has received significant support from the president.
“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,” he wrote on Truth Social in May. “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.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that Colorado authorities release Peters. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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“Colorado must end this unjust incarceration of an innocent American,” he added.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has vowed not to pardon Peters as part of a deal with Trump, saying he would not participate in “any scheme to prevent her from being held accountable under Colorado law.”
