Trump again demands Colorado governor free convicted election clerk Tina Peters

President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed calls for the release of Tina Peters, a pro-Trump election worker who was convicted for her role in a scheme to find evidence of voter fraud in the president’s 2020 election loss.

Peters, a former election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, is serving a nine-year prison sentence following her conviction in August 2024 on seven counts, including four felonies, related to a security breach of the county’s voting systems in 2021 as she sought evidence to support Trump’s claims that his loss to former President Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.

Trump has been pressuring Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters, 70, since returning to the White House last year.

“Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old cancer patient sentenced to nine years in a Colorado prison by a Democratic governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing Democratic fraud in the 2020 presidential election,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “Again, free Tina!”

COLORADO GOVERNOR SETS CONDITIONS TO GRANT CLEMENCY TO PRO-TRUMP CLERK UNDER PRESSURE FROM PRESIDENT

President Donald Trump continued his calls for the release of Tina Peters. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

Polis acknowledged that Peters’ sentence was “harsh,” given that she had no criminal record.

The governor recently noted on social media that Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, while a former state lawmaker convicted of the same crime was sentenced only to probation and community service.

“Justice in Colorado and the United States must be applied equally, you never know when you may have to rely on the rule of law. This is the context I use when considering cases like this that feature sentencing disparities,” Polis wrote on X.

But Polis said her decision to grant clemency would be influenced by whether Peters expressed remorse for her actions — which officials say she did not do.

“What she would have to show in any successful clemency application would be appropriate contrition and apologies. That’s the kind of thing I would look for,” he previously told KUSA-TV.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES PARSON FOR COLORADO CLERK: ‘JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE OUR ELECTIONS ARE FAIR’

President Donald Trump has been pressuring Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters since he returned to the White House last year. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office helped prosecute Peters, stressed that she has shown no remorse for her actions.

“Clemency should be based on remorse, rehabilitation and extenuating circumstances — not political influence, favor or retribution,” said Weiser, a Democrat running to succeed the term-limited Polis.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, who also hopes to replace Polis as governor, also said Peters should not receive a pardon or have his sentence commuted.

“Donald Trump may be seeking revenge on Colorado, but giving in to his political pressure will not make our state stronger or safer,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly defended Peters on social media and announced last year that he was granting him a “full pardon,” although such a move would not apply to a state conviction because that authority rests with the governor.

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration had threatened to withhold funding to Colorado, describing it as potential retaliation for the state’s reluctance to pardon Peters. This discovery came shortly after the announcement of Trump’s symbolic pardon.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Tina Peters on social media. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threat in December to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding for Colorado’s SNAP program violated the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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“This broader context reveals the game; the pilot appears to be focused on punishment and nothing more,” the judge wrote.

A lawsuit also claimed this week that the Trump administration targeted a climate and weather research lab as retaliation against Colorado officials for jailing Peters.

Anders Hagstrom of Fox News contributed to this report.