Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters released from prison after sentence commuted

Tina Peters looks on during her sentencing for her election interference case at the Mesa county district court, on 3 October 2024 in Grand Junction, Colorado. Photograph: Larry Robinson/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP View image in fullscreen Tina Peters looks on during her sentencing for her election interference case at the Mesa county district court, on 3 October 2024 in Grand Junction, Colorado. Photograph: Larry Robinson/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters released from prison after sentence commuted Peters, a conspiracy theorist convicted after 2020 election, served less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence Tina Peters , the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by Donald Trump , was released from prison on Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado ’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence . Peters’ release was confirmed by the Colorado corrections department. The state agency said it would have no more information about the 70-year-old. Her sentence was shortened by Jared Polis, Colorado’s governor, in May after Trump waged a lengthy pressure campaign against the governor and his state. Peters served less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence. Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden at the end of his first presidency. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with the MyPillow chief executive, Mike Lindell – who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 – and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021. Who is Tina Peters, the Colorado clerk whose sentence for election crimes was commuted? Read more Peters then joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof that the election was rigged. Video and photos of the computer system upgrade, including passwords, were posted online. The move stoked false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump. Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa county, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump. An appeals court upheld her conviction in April – but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud. Trump had championed Peters’ case, but because she was convicted under state law, he did not have the power to pardon her. Instead the president pressured Polis to do so, lambasting him on social media and disinviting him from a White House meeting with other governors. The Trump administration also announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocate the US space com