President Donald Trump amped up his call for Colorado to "free Tina Peters," vowing "harsh measures" if the 2020 election fraud investigator is not let out of jail on her nine-year sentence.
"FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by crooked Colorado politicians, including the big mail-in ballot supporting the governor of the state," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday morning. "Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the election."
"She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!"
A state judge sentenced Peters in October, rebuking her for being defiant and continuing to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines.
Jurors found Peters guilty in August 2024 for using someone else's security badge to give an expert affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell access to the Mesa County election system and deceiving other officials about that person's identity. Lindell has been a vocal Trump supporter of claims voting machines were manipulated to steal the 2020 election in favor of former President Joe Biden.
The Justice Department in March submitted a federal court filing in support of Peters' fight to be freed from prison while she appeals a state court conviction.
The DOJ was reviewing whether Peters' prosecution was "oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice" and warned it wants Peters' bid for release to be given "prompt and careful consideration."
Colorado's chief deputy attorney general urged a federal judge in April to reject the Trump administration's bid.
Peters says Judge Matthew Barrett violated her right to free speech by denying her bond while she appeals because of her outspoken questioning of the voting system. She also argued she should be released from prison while she appeals because she is protected from being punished for trying to preserve election records, which she says is a federal duty.
Barrett previously found Peters in contempt of court after District Attorney Dan Rubinstein accused her of recording a court hearing for a person accused of being a co-conspirator, which she denied.
That conviction was overturned for lack of evidence by the state appeals court in January.
Peters says Rubinstein, a Republican, later admitted he did not know if Peters was recording the hearing but still used it as a reason to encourage Barrett to sentence her to prison for the voting system breach. Her lawyers say a review found no evidence of a recording.
Trump has previously been at odds with officials in Democrat-led Colorado over issues including immigration. In March, he demanded the removal of a portrait of himself from the state Capitol because it was manipulated for political reasons to be unflattering of the sitting president, which Trump considered an assault on America.
Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.