(Headline USA) A judge ripped into a Colorado county clerk for her efforts to expose vote fraud involving the county’s voting machines following the 2020 presidential race.
District Judge Matthew Barrett on Thursday sentenced former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme—after earlier dressing her down for her ongoing insistence that she was acting in the public interest to fight systemic corruption.
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” Barrett told her in handing down the sentence.
“You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” he continued. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan.”
The sentencing was the latest lawfare move by leftists to try to chill any similar challenges as they set the stage to rig and steal the 2024 election.
Earlier this week, special counsel Jack Smith laid out a roughly 180-page criminal complaint against GOP nominee Donald Trump accusing him of criminal conduct for his efforts to challenge the 2020 outcome, although none of the allegations actually pointed to any criminal deeds on Trump’s part.
This is not a crime even if it is proven to be a private act.
HOW THE F*CK DID REPUBLICANS ALLOW THIS PROSECUTION TO CONTINUE?
Jack Smith pic.twitter.com/jKefecRDRg
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) October 2, 2024
In his most recent performance evaluation, Barrett himself received middling reviews, with marks lower from attorneys than non-attorneys.
His scores were notably low when evaluated on the category “Basing decisions on evidence
and arguments.”
He also scored poorly in the area of “Being fair and impartial to both sides,” suggesting that Barrett, like other Colorado judges who have foisted themselves in to the national headlines during the current election cycle, may have a radical leftist bias.
Barrett’s score of 3.3 was 0.4 on a 4-point scale lower than the average judge in the district. Specific comments about the judge’s issues were not publicly released.
Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity.
The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a supporter of efforts to investigate systemic voting-machine fraud involving Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic and other companies after allegations emerged that some of the machines had been illegally connected to external internet systems with traffic being routed to destinations in Europe.
Several forensics experts testified at hearings in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere about the suspicious circumstances that were observed. However, the blue states and counties that largely controlled the equipment in question refused to grant access to those seeking to analyze it.
At trial, prosecutors claimed Peters was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems.
Before being sentenced, Peters again reaffirmed that she did nothing wrong from a moral standpoint, regardless of what the state’s corrupt justice system may have determined.
“I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” she told the court.
Peters pressed on about “wireless devices” and fraud software in voting machines, drawing an outburst from the judge, who declared the election outcome to be settled without any further debate.
“I’ve let you go on enough about this,” Judge Barrett said. “The votes are the votes.”
Later, the judge noted that Peters has kept up public appearances in broadcasts to sympathetic audiences for her own benefit.
“It’s just more lies. No objective person believes them,” Barrett opined. “No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people fawning over you.”
Peters had the right to be defiant, he noted, but it was “certainly not helpful for her lot today.”
The breach led by Peters heightened concerns by leftist precincts that “rogue” election workers could use their access and knowledge to expose voting processes from within.
It’s impossible to overestimate the damage Peters has done to other election workers in Colorado and elsewhere, Colorado County Clerks Association director Matt Crane told the court.
“In a real and specific way, her actions have led directly to death threats and general threats to the lives and the families of the people who work in our elections,” Crane claimed.
“She has willingly aided individuals in our country who believe that violence is a way to make a point,” he continued. “She has knowingly fueled a fire within others who choose threats as a means to get their way.”
He, his wife and his children have been among those threatened, Crane claimed. It was unclear how Peters bore responsibility for it.
The lawfare attack on Peters has cost the local government $1.4 million in legal fees and lost employee time, County Commissioner Cody Davis estimated at the sentencing hearing.
Also Peters’ notoriety has incurred “unseen costs” for the area, Davis complained.
“We have a lot of pride in this community but our reputation has taken a hit,” Davis said. “Her behavior has made this county a national laughingstock.”
Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
She was found not guilty of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and one count of criminal impersonation.
Yet she persisted on social media to accuse Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, which made her county’s election system, and others of stealing votes.
Colorado won’t allow anyone to threaten its elections, George Soros-backed Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement in response to Peters’s sentencing.
“Colorado’s elections are the nation’s gold standard,” claimed Griswold, who was heavily involved in the failed attempt to have Trump stricken from the ballot earlier this year using the so-called insurrection clause.
“I am proud of how we have responded to the first insider elections breach in the nation and look forward to another secure and successful election in November,” Griswold dubiously claimed.
Democrat state Attorney General Phil Weiser in a statement declared the sentence to be “fair and just.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
