President Donald Trump met on Tuesday with Tina Peters, the former Colorado elections clerk, at the White House following her release from state prison earlier this month. Peters was the first local official convicted for actions related to attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

Peters certified the 2020 election results indicating Trump won Mesa County, Colorado, despite former President Joe Biden having won the county. In 2021, she allowed a conspiracy theorist access to voter machines to preserve election results amid claims of widespread voter fraud.

In 2024, Peters was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison after being convicted on seven counts, including three counts of attempting to influence a public official. Trump stated that Peters served "much time in solitary confinement along with hardened criminals and murderers."

Trump wrote on Truth Social that Peters came to thank him for securing her release. He claimed, "She was put there because she found Election Fraud, but instead of arresting the people that committed the Fraud, they arrested her!" He also said, "Just think of it, she caught the Democrats cheating, and they put her in jail for Voter Fraud. They didn’t want her out there speaking to the Media."

The slogan "FREE TINA!" has been a rallying cry within the Republican Party over the past two years. Trump also described Peters as a "73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year death sentence in a Colorado prison by a Democrat governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing fraud by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election."

Sources