Trump says he is pardoning Colorado county clerk, despite lacking authority to do so

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By Andrea Shalal, Bhargav Acharya and Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is pardoning Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk convicted of tampering with voting machines after the 2020 presidential election, despite lacking the authority to grant such a pardon.

Peters was sentenced in Colorado state court in 2024 to nine years in prison after she was convicted at trial of seven counts of engaging in a security breach, which occurred when she opened Mesa County, Colorado’s election computers to Trump allies.

Peters, who was well-known for supporting Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, was indicted in 2022 following the breach at her office, which led to voting equipment passwords being posted on a right-wing blog.

Peters denied wrongdoing and remained defiant during her sentencing hearing in Denver, saying her actions were only intended to “serve the people of Mesa County.”

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday evening.

“Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

While Trump has granted a flurry of pardons in recent months, many of them to white-collar criminals and political allies, pardoning authority in the Peters case lies with Colorado’s Democratic governor, not Trump, as Peters was indicted on state rather than federal charges.

Any pardon by Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, is considered extremely unlikely.

(Reporting by Bhargav Archaya; Writing by Christian Martinez; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Chris Reese)