{"id":38163,"date":"2022-09-28T20:37:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T02:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mike-lindell-says-tina-peters-mistaken-about-him-paying-for-mans-lawyer\/"},"modified":"2022-09-29T02:37:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T02:37:03","slug":"mike-lindell-says-tina-peters-mistaken-about-him-paying-for-mans-lawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mike-lindell-says-tina-peters-mistaken-about-him-paying-for-mans-lawyer\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Lindell says Tina Peters mistaken about him paying for man\u2019s lawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mike
Mike Lindell, left, stands alongside Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters as she addresses a crowd gathered on the steps of the Colorado Capitol for the \u201cElection Truth Rally,\u201d which was organized by people who question the results of the 2020 presidential election April 5 in Denver. (Kevin Mohatt for Colorado Newsline, file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters during a livestream interview Saturday said explicitly what she had previously only hinted at \u2013 that a Mesa County resident named Gerald Wood was a knowing participant in a plan to allow another person to use his identity.<\/p>\n

She also said that Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and nationally influential proponent of the \u201cbig lie\u201d that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, paid for Wood\u2019s attorney, an assertion that Lindell on Wednesday disputed.<\/p>\n

Peters, a Republican who promotes election conspiracy theories, is under felony indictment for involvement in an alleged security breach in her own elections office last year. She facilitated the creation of election system hard drive copies, and sensitive information from the system later became public. As part of those activities, she recruited Fruita resident Wood, a software engineer, to undergo a background check with Mesa County and perform IT work.<\/p>\n

Peters and Wood generally agree on that much. But prosecutors, based partly on Wood\u2019s testimony, allege that Peters\u2019 team took Wood\u2019s county ID and allowed another person to use it to impersonate Wood and conceal that person\u2019s own identity during a secure election system software update on May 25, 2021, that involved a member of Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold\u2019s office. Wood has suggested he did not understand why Mesa County elections officials asked for his county ID badge after he obtained it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not perjure myself. I am considered a victim in this. I wasn\u2019t there and I wasn\u2019t part of this,\u201d he told The Colorado Sun<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

Peters, on the other hand, has insisted <\/a>Wood \u201cperjured himself on the stand, and he\u2019s going to have to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, she elaborated on this accusation.<\/p>\n

\u201cGerald Wood stepped up and said, \u2018I will do this for my country, I will give my name, and I will go get the badge, and you can use that,\u2019\u201d she told host Zak Paine<\/a> during the Red Pill News Saturday Night Livestream.<\/p>\n

She later suggested that there are witnesses who could attest that Wood was an accomplice rather than a victim, including Joe Oltmann, an election denier and podcaster with deep ties to Colorado, and Lindell.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was bragging to Joe Oltmann about how he was so proud to be doing this for his country,\u201d Peters said about Wood. \u201cAnd Mike Lindell was paying for his attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reached by phone Wednesday, Lindell denied knowing anything about Wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who he is, so I did not pay for that. I never paid for anybody\u2019s lawyers there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lindell at first rejected the notion that Peters said he paid for Wood\u2019s attorney. When a reporter said she indeed had, Lindell said, \u201cIf she said that, she\u2019s misconstrued.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reporter texted Lindell a clip of Peters speaking with Paine. Lindell did not respond to the text.<\/p>\n

Wood through his wife, Wendi Wood, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Investigators allege that the person who impersonated Wood was Conan Hayes<\/a>, a former professional surfer and election conspiracist.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, FBI agents seized Lindell\u2019s cellphone <\/a>in connection with the Peters case.<\/p>\n

Peters\u2019 trial is due to begin<\/a> March 6. She has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Embattled elections official accuses Gerald Wood of being knowing participant in alleged election system security breach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,266,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-election","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38163","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=38163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38163"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}