Tina Peters Is Free

Tina Peters is out of prison. The governor of Colorado commuted her nine-year sentence last month and she walked out a free woman on Monday. The election-integrity activist had been locked up in a maximum security prison since October 2024.

“It’s a miracle, it really is” Peters told podcaster Steve Bannon on Monday. She said Colorado Governor Jared Polis pardoned 35 people and gave clemency to nine, her being one of them. The Colorado Democratic Party censured Polis over his decision to free Peters, with some Democrats calling for his impeachment.

For nearly the entire duration of his second term, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Justice Department have been applying pressure on Colorado officials to release Peters. By August of last year, the president had threatened “harsh measures” if they didn’t. In December, he pardoned her. But that was not enough to secure her release, since she was convicted on state charges.

The Justice Department also tried to get Peters transferred into federal custody, but to no avail. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold had dubbed Trump’s pressure campaign an assault “on our democracy.” And there were few signs, if any, portending Peters’ early release.

But now, she has been freed, and a pivotal upper court decision from April appears to have played the deciding role.

History

Peters was thrown in prison after a jury convicted her of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and official misconduct, among other charges. Authorities said she copied election-related data and images that were later made public.

As did many election-integrity activists and commentariats at the time, Peters believed that voting machines manipulated votes to alter the 2020 general-election outcome in favor of Joe Biden. She gave an interview to TNA on August 16, 2024, just weeks before she was imprisoned. She told us she had proof of collusion to steal votes between election-machine maker Dominion, the Colorado secretary of state, and even other countries.

Peters’ nine-year sentence was unprecedentedly severe. There’s no record of anyone else receiving such a long sentence for election crimes. This past April, the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed and ordered the trial court to re-sentence her. While the appeals court upheld her conviction, it questioned the “fairness” of her sentence. Just before sending jurors to deliberate, the trial court judge who presided over her case called Peters a “charlatan” who peddled “snake oil.” The appellate judges saw this as a “First Amendment problem” that “fundamentally calls into question the fairness of the sentence,” saying:

The trial court’s comments about Peters’ belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing. Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.

Polis cited the appeals court opinion as the reason for his decision to commute her sentence. “It was very clear she committed these criminal acts, but the fact that she holds certain beliefs should not impact the sentencing,” the Colorado governor told reporters.

Prison Reform

While she was locked up, Peters’ advocates worried she would end up dead before completing her sentence. Her attorney said she was attacked several times in prison. In a statement from mid-May, Peters said she had faced death threats. She also touched on that during her conversation with Bannon. “I was in with women who had done horrendous crimes,” she said.

Based on her conversation with Bannon, Peters is now dedicated to not only election reform, but prison reform. She said in May that the prison system was serving unhealthy food and creating addiction problems, particularly to Suboxone, a controversial prescription drug used to treat opioid addicts. Suboxone, as it just so happens, is also an opioid. The main ingredient is buprenorphine, an opioid, and users have reported addiction problems. “My experiences have given me a perspective that I plan to share with others to improve Colorado’s corrections system,” she said in May.

Election Integrity

As for election integrity, Peters has vowed to continue her mission for reform, but “through legal means,” according to the May statement. “I know that the Democrats are going to cheat,” she told Bannon. She is disappointed that election reform has still not been implemented. “No one is really addressing the problem that I spent my time in prison as retribution for, and that was exposing the election machines that allowed the votes to be flipped,” she noted.

Hours after walking out of prison on Monday, she told Bannln that she is grateful to Trump for everything he did to bring attention to her unjust situation. She said she is going to spend the next few weeks “regaining” her health. She developed digestive problems in prison, in large part because the food there “is horrible,” and skin “growths.” “I feel like I’ve aged about 10 years,” she said.

After that, she indicated, she is going to get back on the track that landed her in prison:

Even thought Governor Polis reduced my sentence from nine years to four and a half years, I still have a fight to clear my name and bring out the truth of why they came after me the way they did.