President Donald Trump hosted former Mesa County, Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters at the White House on Tuesday, just weeks after her release from state prison. Peters became the first local official convicted in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Trump took to Truth Social to frame the meeting as a victory for his base, writing, "‘FREE TINA!’ became the rallying cry of the Republican Party over the past two years. Tina Peters just came to the White House to thank me for getting her released from prison in Colorado." He added, "She was put there because she found Election Fraud, but instead of arresting the people that committed the Fraud, they arrested her!"
Peters, who certified the 2020 election results in Mesa County as a win for Trump—despite President Joe Biden actually winning the county—allowed a conspiracy theorist access to voting machines in 2021. The goal was to preserve evidence based on Trump's unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. She was convicted in 2024 on seven counts, including three counts of attempting to influence a public official, and sentenced to nearly nine years in prison.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence earlier this month, leading to her release. Trump had repeatedly called for Polis to free Peters, writing on Truth Social in March, "Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year death sentence in a Colorado prison by a Democrat governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing fraud by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election."
During the Oval Office meeting, Trump claimed Peters endured harsh conditions, saying she served "much time in solitary confinement along with hardened criminals and murderers." He continued, "What she went through should never happen to anyone again. Just think of it, she caught the Democrats cheating, and they put her in jail for Voter Fraud. They didn’t want her out there speaking to the Media."
The president repeated his baseless assertion that Democrats attempted to steal the 2024 election, claiming it was "TOO BIG TO RID." He also alleged that Peters "knows that the Voting Machines are RIGGED, that the Mail In Ballots are a DISASTER, and that our Elections are very Dangerous and Corrupt at a time when, with the Threat of Communism, we must be very wise and careful!"
Peters' case has become a flashpoint in ongoing debates over election integrity. Her conviction marked a rare instance of legal accountability for those who acted on Trump's false claims of a stolen 2020 election. Meanwhile, Trump's continued embrace of such figures underscores his persistent focus on the 2020 election as a political rallying point.
The meeting comes amid broader Republican efforts to tighten voting laws, including Trump's SAVE Act push, which critics call a solution in search of a problem. It also follows a Supreme Court rejection of Trump's appeal in the Carroll defamation case, adding to his legal setbacks.
