Former Colorado clerk will remain in state prison after a federal judge rejected her bid for freedom

DENVER (AP) — A federal magistrate judge on Monday rejected a bid by a former Colorado county clerk to be released from prison while she appeals her state conviction for orchestrating a data breach scheme driven by false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters filed a federal lawsuit asking that she be released on bond while her appeal is considered. Attorneys for the state had argued the case should be thrown out partly because of a legal doctrine that prevents federal courts from getting involved in pending state criminal cases.

Federal magistrate judge Scott Varholak ruled Monday that Peters didn’t make a case that he should get involved in overturning her state sentence.

Peters argued that the magistrate judge should free her because she said the state judge who sentenced her to nine years behind bars violated her First Amendment rights. Peters claimed he punished her for making allegations about election fraud, but prosecutors argued that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed judges to consider people’s speech during sentencings if they deem it relevant.

During Peters’ October 2024 sentencing, Judge Matthew Barrett called the defendant a “charlatan” and said she posed a danger to the community for spreading lies about voting and undermining the democratic process.

Peters was unapologetic and insisted that everything she did was geared toward trying to unroot what she believed was fraud. She claimed her actions were done for the greater good.

Her lawyers argued that Barrett was wrong to call Peters statements “lies” and said there was no evidence her speech posed a danger.

President Donald Trump and other supporters, including retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the national security adviser during Trump’s first term, have called for Peters to be released. In August, Trump warned he would “take harsh measures” if Peters wasn’t freed, saying she was old and very sick.

“Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election,” Trump posted Aug. 21 on his Truth Social platform.

Flynn has said Peters, 70, should be moved into federal custody because she could be a witness into an investigation of the 2020 election.

The administration sent a letter to the Colorado prison system in mid-November asking that Peters be transferred to federal custody. One her lawyers said he believed the request was made so Peters could more easily be involved into an investigation into the 2020 election.

There is no evidence of any widespread cheating in Colorado elections, which have been staunchly defended by county clerks throughout the state, most of whom are Republican. Peters was prosecuted by an elected Republican district attorney, and the three supervisors in her conservative-leaning county also supported the case and defended the integrity of the state’s elections.

The U.S. Justice Department got involved in Peters’ federal case in March, saying “reasonable concerns” had been raised about her prosecution. It also said the DOJ was reviewing whether the prosecution was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives,” a line from an executive order entitled “Ending the Weaponization of The Federal Government” that Trump signed shortly after his inauguration.

The state objected to the federal government inserting itself, saying the statement the department filed in the case appeared to be a “naked, political attempt” to intimidate the court or Peters’ prosecutors. It unsuccessfully asked for the court to reject it.

Peters’ lawyers pointed to three cases in which federal judges ordered people convicted of state crimes to be released from prison while they appealed, including one involving free speech. In that 1977 case, a judge freed the late Native American activist Russell Means after he was placed back behind bars because he remained active in the American Indian Movement while free on bond from state custody. The state court had largely barred him from participating in the group. The federal judge ruled that was an unconstitutional limit on his First Amendment rights of speech and association.

Peters challenged her imprisonment under a constitutional provision known as habeas corpus.