Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, famous for her 2020 election denialism, pleaded not guilty to a slew of felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from an election security breach Wednesday.
Peters was indicted in March by a grand jury on 10 charges for allegedly permitting a consultant to forge an unauthorized copy of a hard drive for voting machine equipment in Mesa County, data that later leaked online and was traced back to the county. Peters has denied wrongdoing and denigrated the charges against her as politically motivated.
COLORADO COUNTY CLERK TINA PETERS HIT WITH ANOTHER ARREST WARRANT
The charges against Peters include three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, failure to comply with the secretary of state, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, one count of official misconduct, violation of duty, and one felony count of identity theft.
District Judge Matthew Barrett, who is overseeing the case, set a date for Peters’s trial for March 6, 2023.
She allegedly requested the security cameras be turned off in the county election office last year at about the time the unauthorized copy of a hard drive for voting machine equipment was made. The subsequent leak that was traced back to the county included sensitive Dominion Voting Systems machines material and passwords.
In May, a court stripped Peters of her ability to administer the midterm elections in Mesa County following a lawsuit from Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold that cited the election security breach. Peters vied for the Republican nod for Colorado secretary of state but ultimately lost her primary contest.
Peters’s former chief deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, entered a guilty plea last month in a relevant case and agreed to testify against her old boss, CBS reported. An additional employee from Peters’s office has also been charged.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to Peters for comment. The county clerk is also embroiled in a bevy of ethics complaints for her conduct in office, which includes a complaint about alleged donations she received from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Peters has cultivated a cozy relationship with Lindell and peddled his heavily disputed claims that rampant election malfeasance deprived former President Donald Trump of victory in 2020.
