Late Thursday, President Trump announced via Truth Social that he was issuing a full pardon for Tina Peters. This has been a long time coming, and will certainly provoke a fiery response from the Left. Bring it on.
Tina Peters was a newly-elected clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, during the 2020 election. As the chief election officer of the county, she was alarmed when Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold ordered all election data - including the machine software itself - to be erased from every election machine in the state.
This order raised serious questions about compliance with the Help America Vote Act, a federal law which requires all election data to be kept for 22 months. Griswold’s order would also have destroyed evidence needed to know whether Colorado was in compliance with the law that allows only federally-approved software to be installed on voting machines.
Griswold called it a “trusted build.” But who, exactly, trusted it? It was designed to wipe every bit and byte of evidence from every machine. So, before the Dominion technicians came to Mesa County, Peters made a forensic copy of the data.
That is the crime that earned her nine years in prison. Then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland teamed up with Griswold to wage lawfare against this 70-year-old grandmother until she was sentenced last October.
Curiously, even though she was seeking to comply with federal law - and even though the United States attorney general was working to help prosecute her - Peters was charged under state laws, and locked in the state prison.
I am not going to retry the case here. I would only encourage you to educate yourself. If you are troubled by the security holes in electronic voting machines, you will find Peters’ court filings compelling (https://tinapeters.us/court-filings/). If you believe that the electronic voting machines are as trustworthy as a kindly grandmother from Pasadena, you will believe the story that mainstream media is peddling.
Peters is either a hero or a criminal depending on your news source. Now that President Trump has weighed in on her side, you can bet her mug shot will be edited to include fangs and orange hair. Aside from this polarized view of Peters’ actions, you will also encounter a polarized view of Trump’s pardon.
Since Peters is in Colorado’s state prison and charged with state crimes, you might think she is beyond the reach of presidential pardons. In fact, many think that Garland studiously avoided leveling any federal charges precisely to deny President Trump any pardoning authority.
Until now, Trump has been playing to that assumption. Although the federal Department of Justice is investigating the Colorado state prison system, and DOJ attorneys are investigating the constitutionality of Peters’ trial and sentencing, Trump had only called on Colorado Governor Jared Polis to pardon her.
But last week, Peter Ticktin, Peters’ attorney, sent a letter to President Trump outlining why he has full pardon authority. You should take the time to read it.
At the center of his arguments is that “Clerk Peters is a critical eyewitness to the destruction of federal election records by Jenna Griswold.” Peters’ testimony and preserved data are essential to the federal government’s need to know the level of coordination between Dominion technicians and Colorado officials.
The letter makes the case that even though her case was carefully limited to laws in the state of Colorado, “Colorado used state charges to evade presidential pardon power and punish Peters for complying with federal election record preservation laws.”
On this basis, Ticktin argued that interfering with federal elections is an “offense against the United States,” which is precisely the pardoning power that the U.S. Constitution grants to the president.
Apparently, this letter had an impact on the Trump Administration. He pardoned her five days later. But within hours of the pardon announcement, Jenna Griswold defiantly wrote, “Trump has no constitutional authority to pardon her.”
So, the fight is on.
We will see how this plays out. If nothing else, Trump’s pardon will motivate many more citizens to study the public documents of the Tina Peters case and to make an informed decision.
Speaking as one who has followed her case closely since the beginning, I hope this national hero can come home for Christmas.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.
