The Justice Department announced it will review the conviction of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for tampering with voting machines in an effort to challenge the 2020 election results. This move follows Peters’ appeal against her conviction, with concerns raised about the length of her sentence and the denial of bail during her appeal. The Justice Department’s scrutiny of her case is framed as part of a broader investigation into potential abuses in the criminal justice process. Critics note this intervention may reflect political motivations tied to former President Trump’s efforts to influence narratives surrounding the election.
On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it would revisit the conviction of the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., who was convicted last summer on state charges for tampering with voting machines that were under her jurisdiction in a misguided attempt to demonstrate that they had been manipulated to sway the 2020 election results against President Trump.
This decision exemplifies how the Justice Department, during Mr. Trump’s administration, aimed to leverage its authority to aid individuals acting on his behalf while targeting critics or opponents. It also contributes to the president’s initiative to reshape the narrative surrounding his attempts to reverse the election outcome.
About three weeks ago, the former clerk, Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years for the state election tampering offenses, submitted a bold motion in Federal District Court in Denver that effectively challenged the guilty verdict she received at the conclusion of her Grand Junction trial in August.
In an unexpected development, Yaakov M. Roth, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, submitted a court brief on Monday, known as a statement of interest, which noted that “reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’s case.” In the document, Mr. Roth indicated that the federal judge overseeing Ms. Peters’s petition should give it “prompt and careful consideration.”
Mr. Roth expressed that the Justice Department had concerns, particularly regarding “the exceptionally lengthy sentence” handed down to Ms. Peters by the Grand Junction judge. He also questioned the state prosecutors’ decision to deny her bail during the appeal process as “arbitrary or unreasonable.”
The review of Ms. Peters’s case fits within a broader investigation into “abuses of the criminal justice process” that is occurring nationwide, Mr. Roth noted. The examination of her case is being conducted under an executive order issued by Mr. Trump aimed at halting the “weaponization of the federal government.”
It is still uncertain what long-term impact the Justice Department’s review of Ms. Peters’s case could have on the proceedings. However, Mr. Roth clearly stated in his court documents that the assessment is to ascertain if the prosecution was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice.”
While the Justice Department cannot directly overturn the state conviction, its request for federal court intervention marks a significant involvement in the case.
Dan Rubinstein, the Mesa County district attorney who secured the conviction against Ms. Peters, remarked on Monday evening that, until Mr. Roth’s court documents were filed, he was unaware that the Justice Department intended to scrutinize Ms. Peters’s case for potential political bias.
Furthermore, he stated that no one from the department had contacted him prior to the filing to raise concerns about the case.
“I am open to discussing with anyone in the administration the motivations and expectations that our community had when they overwhelmingly wanted me to pursue this criminal action,” Mr. Rubinstein stated.
A jury in Grand Junction convicted Ms. Peters on seven counts related to her attempts to breach a voting machine made by Dominion Voting Systems in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The jury found that Ms. Peters assisted an outside individual in gaining unauthorized access to the machine in May 2021 and obtaining information that was later publicly disclosed during a conspiratorial event aimed at undermining trust in Mr. Trump’s election defeat.
During the sentencing hearing in October, Judge Matthew D. Barrett admonished Ms. Peters from the bench, telling her that he was imposing a severe penalty because she had persistently promoted false claims about Mr. Trump’s loss and, in doing so, had become a figurehead among those who denied his defeat.
“You are no hero. You abused your position, and you are a charlatan,” Judge Barrett remarked, adding, “You cannot help but lie as easily as you breathe.”
Since Mr. Trump’s reelection, the Justice Department has faced backlash over its handling of several cases, leading to the sudden resignations of multiple federal prosecutors.
Top prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned this month in response to the department’s attempts to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Similarly, the chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington recently resigned after she denied a request from her supervisor, Ed Martin, to freeze the assets of a government contractor, citing a lack of sufficient evidence.
Mr. Martin has also been quietly advocating for evidence against Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, to be presented to a federal grand jury regarding his remarks about Supreme Court justices in 2020, according to sources familiar with the situation. So far, Justice Department officials have rebuffed this request, according to one of those sources.