President Donald Trump on Monday escalated his defense of former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted last year in a scheme to undermine the 2020 election, calling her a “political prisoner” and demanding her immediate release.
In a post to his Truth Social media platform, Trump lashed out at Democratic Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who he accused of ignoring “Illegals committing Violent Crimes like Rape and Murder in his State,” while targeting Peters, an election denier whom Trump described as “a 69-year-old Gold Star mother who worked to expose and document Democrat Election Fraud.”
“Tina is an innocent Political Prisoner being horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment,” Trump wrote Monday. “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.”
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Peters was convicted in August on seven criminal charges related to a security breach that occurred in the spring of 2021 in her own office, according to media reports. Prosecutors said she allowed unauthorized access to voting equipment to prove false claims of election fraud – part of a broader MAGAfied movement to challenge Trump’s 2020 election loss.
“Colorado must end this unjust incarceration of an innocent American,” Trump concluded. “I am hereby directing the Department of Justice to take all necessary action to help secure the release of this 'hostage' being held in a Colorado prison by the Democrats, for political reasons. FREE TINA PETERS, NOW!”
A judge last year sentenced Peters to nine years in prison.