Democrat SOS and Media Blast CO Gov. Polis for Tina Peters' Commutation; Hear How He Sets Them Straight

After Colorado Governor Jared Polis' limited commutation of the nine-year sentence for former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk Tina Peters, he has been blasted nonstop by Democrats, left-leaning journalists, and legacy media outlets. Peters became a lightning rod for election integrity advocates and judicial reformists over her 2024 conviction for election interference and attempting to influence a public official when she exposed voting information from a Dominion machine.

 Polis considered her nine-year sentence to be unusually punitive, particularly in light of Sonja Jaquez Lewis, a former Democrat state senator, whose 2024 criminal indictment was in the same category as Peters'. 

Jaquez Lewis' indictment included four felonies: making three false statements to four public officials. Not only were these charges combined from three false statements to one, but Jaquez Lewis was sentenced to two years of supervised probation, 150 hours of community service, and a fine.

Not exactly justice equally applied. Polis outlined this reasoning in Peters' letter of clemency.

However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.

I agree with the principle highlighted by the Colorado Court of Appeals in your case that, “...the First Amendment generally prohibits punishing someone for their protected speech. ‘[A] court may not punish an individual by imposing a heavier sentence for the exercise of [F]irst [A]mendment rights. . . . A sentence based to any degree on activity or beliefs protected by the [F]irst [A]mendment is constitutionally invalid.’”

Further I agree, in this case, “[T]he trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing. Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.

Indeed, under these circumstances, just as her purported beliefs underlying her motive for her actions were not relevant to her defense, the trial court should not have considered those beliefs relevant when imposing sentence.”

Polis did a video explaining how and why he made his choice to cut Peters' sentence in half from almost nine years to four-and-a-half. In his interviews with legacy media, Polis continued to emphasize this point, despite legacy media's obsession with making it about President Donald Trump and 2020 election denialism. 

When Polis appeared on CNN, host Kaitlan Collins 

 

tried to steer him in that direction to further give credence to this tired narrative. Surprisingly, Polis did not play ball.

POLIS: Thousands of people, of course, have weighed in, people called my office, some incorrectly thought she didn't commit a crime, as the president did, thought she should be pardoned — we're going to fight the president's illegal pardon in court. Some like me thought she was guilty, should have had a slightly lower sentence. Others wanted her to stay there for a long time and fundamentally misunderstood the crime. Thought it had something to do with the 2020 election or election conspiracy around Trump and Biden, when the crime had zero to do with that.

COLLINS: You don't think its.. its.. had Trump not disputed the 2020 election, had Mike Lindell not become this famous figure on TV disputing the election results in 2020, that what happened in 2021 in Mesa County would have happened?

POLIS: Well, to be clear: this was the clerk that certified the 2020 election results. There was not an issue there. There were some issues around her competency [COLLINS interrupts] This was a municipal election —

COLLINS: I'm just asking, if you don't think that what happened in 2020... you don't think this would have happened? You just think that those are totally separate? That this would have occurred even if the president, if that never happened in 2020 with a major election dispute, pressure on the Vice President, and on state election officials, from Georgia to Colorado to wherever, on that. You don't think that would have happened?

POLIS: You'd have to have her on to talk about her motivation. Do I think that she was egged on or encouraged in her illegal acts by people like Mike Lindell, or perhaps, even, the President of the United States, it's certainly conjecture, but it's certainly possible. I don't know how she came to hold her beliefs. I certainly believe that there are incorrect, dangerous beliefs that are held in certain circles in our country. 

Ultimately it's a matter of free speech until you cross the line and violate the law, which she did. And that's why she committed the crime and she should do the crime with a sentence that's tough and fair. That's why she'll... her sentence has been adjusted to four-and-a-half years, which is a very severe sentence for what she did. When again, another public official in Colorado got probation only for one of these acts of felony and three other felonies.