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Indicted elections clerk Tina Peters discloses campaign spending on Mar-a-Lago travel and ‘2000 Mules’ tickets
May 23, 2022
A finance report filed last week indicates Colorado secretary of state candidate Tina Peters used campaign money to fund a trip to Florida to attend a screening of a documentary focused on baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
On May 5, Peters attended a screening of “2000 Mules,” a film by conservative media personality Dinesh D’Souza, at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. The film falsely implies that rampant voter fraud compromised the 2020 presidential election, costing Trump a second term. Peters, the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder, has built her campaign around such claims of election fraud, which have been repeatedly debunked by experts, courts and election officials from both parties.
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Mar-a-Lago has become a destination for conservative candidates seeking a Trump endorsement, but Peters has not received one.
Her campaign disclosed multiple expenditures apparently related to the trip on a May 16 finance report: about $473 for a Palm Beach hotel down the street from Mar-a-Lago, about $15 for a Starbucks order with the memo “FL trip,” and about $27 for an Uber ride with the memo “FL travel.” The campaign also listed about $400 for air travel and luggage fees.
Peters, currently the Mesa County clerk and recorder, is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state against Pam Anderson and Mike O’Donnell. Her campaign did not return a request for comment.
Colorado’s campaign and political finance manual states that “money spent on anything for the purpose of expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate is considered an expenditure.” Expenditures typically involve advertising costs, data acquisition, consulting costs or expenses for travel to campaign events around the state or district. Peters did not mention her candidacy when sharing photos of herself from the event on social media.
Additionally, Peters spent $800 for 40 tickets to the movie, which had a limited release in early May and is also available to watch online. Her campaign reported that expenditure on April 28, before the Florida trip.
Peters is mostly barred from leaving the state because of her recent grand jury indictment. She was allowed to travel to Florida, however, as reported by 9News.
She was indicted earlier this year on 10 counts, including seven felonies, in relation to a security breach of Mesa County’s election system. She was also recently barred from having a role in overseeing the 2022 primary and general elections.
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Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.
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On Nov. 30, 2021, a suicidal teenager killed seven fellow students at Oxford High School in Michigan. The family of one teen is joining a lawsuit that attacks the failures of the school to follow warning signs about the mass shooter, reported Click Detroit.
Justin Shilling was trying to protect younger student Keegan Gregory, while the two were hiding in a bathroom stall.
After shooting Justin, the shooter ordered Keegan against the wall. Justin had a plan that Keegan said gave him the confidence to run. “The minute the shooter took his gun off Keegan and pointed at the wall where he was going to kill him, he ran." Keegan is now facing serious trauma and his family believes it will be a long road.
“Justin’s final moments were spent protecting Keegan,” said Justin's mom, Jill Soave. “No 17-year-old should be put in that position.”
Soave joined a new lawsuit against the Oxford Community Schools and Oxford High School for reckless action.
“We are beyond heartbroken, we’re traumatized, we’re devastated and we are not ok,” Soave said. “It’s been 174 days since he was murdered and it feels like it was just last week. For me, there will never be healing, there will only be coping.”
“You only wish that they will have what you had when they graduated,” Shilling’s father, Craig, said. “The fun times with your friends and the parties.”
Attorney Ven Johnson said that the school's procedures should have protected the students first and the families want to know what went wrong to ensure it'll never happen again.
“Understanding what happened, full transparency, exposing that, calling attention to it coming up with better processes, so no one ever has to go through this again," said Johnson.
Justin's death not only saved Keegan but he also saved six others by giving his organs to save their lives.
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On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Trump-backed West Virginia Congressman Alex Mooney faces a litany of ethics complaints from his former staffers, from improper use of government resources to the illegal acceptance of gifts.
"On Monday, the Office of Congressional Ethics released a lengthy report that found 'substantial reason' to believe Mooney had committed a number of ethical violations while in office — potentially even violations of federal law," reported Sam Brodey. "Among other things, Mooney may have 'accepted a free or below-market-value trip to Aruba,' used taxpayer dollars for non-approved purposes, and used staff for campaign work and 'personal errands,' according to OCE. On top of that, he may have 'withheld, concealed, or falsified' information provided to ethics officials in the course of the investigation."
"Several Mooney staffers said they were required to do a variety of basic and complicated tasks for the family instead of — or in addition to — their official duties, including babysitting Mooney’s children, driving them to and from school, taking care of their dog, and chauffeuring the congressman long distances for personal reasons," said the report. "One former staffer said they drove Mooney over 250 miles in one afternoon, taking him from Washington to Richmond, Virginia, for his son’s basketball game, then back to West Virginia. Another staffer drove from their home in northern Virginia to Charles Town, West Virginia, to walk the Mooneys’ dog, Skipper, while the family was away."
All of this would be against ethics laws, which requires staffers only be used for "legitimate, official activity" and that any personal activity they do should be reimbursed to the U.S. Treasury.
READ: GOP Senate candidate sues to count more mail ballots as Dr Oz's lead continues to slip: report
"The OCE even managed to take a passing shot at Mooney, who's long faced accusations that he's not a true West Virginian. The OCE noted that Mooney's staff worked to have his wife's inactive medical license in Maryland activated in West Virginia," said the report. "'Because Rep. Mooney was not from West Virginia and had not lived in the state prior to his 2014 bid for his congressional seat,' the OCE report said, 'Dr. Mooney was not licensed to practice medicine in the state.'"
Mooney won a bitterly contested primary for a West Virginia congressional district earlier this year against fellow sitting Congressman David McKinley, after the Census eliminated a seat from the state and drew them into the same district. He was carried to victory in part by an endorsement from the former president.
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