Lawyer suggests governor could be in handcuffs in wild tirade over jailed MAGA clerk

The lawyer representing jailed former Colorado elections clerk turned MAGA conspiracy activist Tina Peters suggested that Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO), as well as Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, could find themselves in prison soon.

The attorney, Peter Ticktin, made this claim as part of a furious statement responding to Polis' refusal to release Peters from her sentence for unlawfully breaching election equipment, as part of her plot to prove President Donald Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump issued a pardon for Peters this week, but that pardon is considered purely symbolic because she was convicted on state charges, which are not subject to federal pardons. But Ticktin insists that this is an unsettled legal question and Peters should, at the very least, be released until courts decide one way or the other.

"The Governor states that he will abide by the judgment of the courts," said Ticktin in a message posted to X by local reporter Kyle Clark. "However, the process of litigation takes time, and Tina Peters needs to be released while the issues are being resolved. The governor has no way to know which way the courts will decide the issue of whether President Trump has the right to pardon prisoners who were convicted of state offenses."

"As such, he has no right to hold her, until the issue is determined, as he does not know if he is rightfully holding a free person in prison or one who should be in prison," Ticktin continued. "He has no right to keep a person in prison because she may belong there. If he does, he is, at the very least, imprisoning a pardoned lady, which has serious legal ramifications in their own right."

"The fact of the matter is that those in power, such as Governor Polis, become lulled in their echo chambers to be blind to the fact that their situation is changing," he said. "Today, these folk are in charge, but there is a good chance that tomorrow, they, especially Jena Griswold, will be in handcuffs, herself. After all, she violated federal law by installing the Trusted Build, being fully aware that they would delete the evidence of the election. It is so ironic when the one who destroyed evidence is taking a harsh position that the one who was preserving the evidence remain in prison. If they have any smarts, at all, they would stop their silly game of wrongfully imprisoning an innocent woman who is in the prayers of half of this country."

This is not Ticktin's only eyebrow-raising statement about the case. Earlier in the day, he agreed with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon that Trump should deploy the 101st Airborne Division to spring Peters from prison.