Donald Trump demands release of supporter jailed for tampering with voting machines
Donald Trump has demanded a supporter who tampered with voting machines to try and prove the election he lost was rigged be released from prison.
Tina Peters, a former election official, is serving nine years in prison for illegally accessing voting machines after, prosecutors said, she became "fixated" on vote rigging when Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Last August she 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.
Peters is serving nine years in prison, after a judge told her last year: 'You are no hero. You're a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that's been proven to be junk time and time again."
She was the first election official in the US convicted of criminal charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump threatened "harsh measures" if she is not immediately freed immediately.
Republican Peters, 68, helped breach the election computer systems in Mesa County, Colorado, and allowed a man affiliated with Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate, election denier and serial conspiracy theorist, to access them.
But despite her being tried by a grand jury, and convicted by a jury of her peers, Trump this morning demanded her release.
"FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians, including the big Mail-In Ballot supporting the governor of the State," Trump wrote, none of which is true.
He went on, again falsely: "Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election."
He added: "If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!"
Trump can't pardon her, because she was convicted of state crimes, not federal crimes.
"Tina Peters has been sentenced to nine years of incarceration for her dangerous attempts to break into her own election equipment to prove Trump's 'Big Lie'," Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement following her conviction.
"We will not allow anyone to threaten our elections."
Trump continues to repeatedly claim, without evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him by Joe Biden.
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On January 6, 2021, he gave a speech encouraging his supporters to march on the US Capitol Building in Washington DC and "fight like hell".
This led to a riot and attempted coup d'etat at the Capitol, as thousands of Trump supporters stormed the building in a bid to overturn the result of a free and fair election.
On Trump's first day back in office, he pardoned almost all of those arrested - including people who violently assaulted police officers protecting the Capitol that day.
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