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President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a full pardon to Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk whose criminal conviction in a 2021 voting-machine breach made her a leader among election integrity activists.
The president announced the decision on Truth Social, criticizing Democrats and prosecutors and accusing them of targeting Peters and others who supported his attempts to challenge the 2020 election results.
“For years, Democrats ignored Violent and Vicious Crime of all shapes, sizes, colors, and types. Violent Criminals who should have been locked up were allowed to attack again. Democrats were also far too happy to let in the worst from the worst countries so they could rip off American Taxpayers,” President Trump wrote.
“Democrats only think there is one crime – Not voting for them! Instead of protecting Americans and their Tax Dollars, Democrats chose instead to prosecute anyone they can find that wanted Safe and Secure Elections. Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest. Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” he continued.
“Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election! The pardon followed a clemency request filed days earlier after a court rejected Peters’ habeas corpus petition. Her attorney, Peter Ticktin, urged the White House to intervene, saying Peters had faced repeated threats from other inmates,” the president concluded.
Peters drew national attention after the 2021 security breach in Mesa County, where restricted voting-machine data was copied and later posted online. Colorado officials claimed the breach violated state protocols and exposed sensitive information about the state’s election systems.
Prosecutors said Peters allowed an unauthorized individual into a secure area during a software update and helped facilitate the copying of Dominion Voting Systems data. A jury convicted her in 2024 of obstruction of a government operation for interfering with investigators. She received a four-month jail sentence, fines, and community service.
Felony charges tied to the breach continued to move through the courts during her incarceration.
Peters and her supporters insisted she acted as a whistleblower. President Trump has argued that Peters was pursued because she supported his efforts to investigate the 2020 election.
