{"id":22226,"date":"2025-05-15T15:27:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-attorney-general-says-trump-administration-cannot-free-tina-peters\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:27:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:27:42","slug":"colorado-attorney-general-says-trump-administration-cannot-free-tina-peters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-attorney-general-says-trump-administration-cannot-free-tina-peters\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado attorney general says Trump administration cannot free Tina Peters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters at the Colorado Republican State Assembly on April 9, 2022. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Wednesday that the federal government has no standing to free former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters from jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have our own system,\u201d Weiser said in an interview with Colorado Matters. \u201cThis is what our constitution calls federalism. We enforce our criminal laws and the federal government can\u2019t hijack that system. They have to honor it. We are a separate sovereign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters was found guilty last August by a jury of Mesa County residents on seven counts, including four felonies, after she helped facilitate unauthorized access to county voting equipment that she was supposed to safeguard in search of voter fraud. She was sentenced to nine years in prison.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, however, President Donald Trump said he was directing the Department of Justice to \u201ctake all necessary action to help secure the release of (Peters).\u201d Trump also referred to her as a hostage that was \u201cbeing held in a Colorado prison by the Democrats, for political reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Weiser\"
Weiser<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In his interview with Ryan Warner, Weiser, whose office helped try Peters, said that wasn\u2019t the case, adding her prosecution was a bipartisan effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan Rubenstein from Mesa County is the local (district attorney); he\u2019s a Republican,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cThere is nothing, as Dan Rubenstein has explained, about this prosecution that was political.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about the rule of law. It was about defending the integrity of elections and making sure that someone who takes an oath to operate in a legitimate and legal fashion doesn\u2019t undermine the oath of office, doesn\u2019t break the law that was tried to a jury of her peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department submitted a filing in federal court in March supporting Peters\u2019 bid for freedom. There has been virtually no movement in the case, however.<\/p>\n

Weiser said Peters\u2019 appeal in Colorado won\u2019t be affected by the Trump administration\u2019s recent actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be appeals in state court. We\u2019re handling that work and we\u2019re going to handle it with integrity and commit to the rule of law,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re not going to be intimidated by the administration that has shown a disregard for the rule of law and a willingness to try to essentially use fear tactics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to be intimidated. I\u2019m not going to be afraid. I\u2019m going to defend the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

referred to former elections clerk as a hostage being held for political reasons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[133,266,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-courts","tag-election","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22226"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}