MESA COUNTY, Colo. – On Thursday, Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced a defiant Tina Peters to 9 years behind bars on multiple charges – including felonies – for a data-breach plot amid false claims of voting machine fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
Peters, the former Mesa County Clerk was found guilty in August by a jury on seven of 10 counts including first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation along with other counts.
“You are no hero. You abused your position – and you’re a charlatan who used, and is still using your prior position to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again,” said Judge Barrett. “Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious. I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could.”Judge Barrett added: “You’re as defiant as a defendant as this court has ever seen.”
Peters, who was indicted in March 2022, was accused of copying hard drive images of election software in 2021, which ended up online and being discussed by Peters and others.
Before sentencing, Peters remained unapologetic. “I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” she said.
She’ll take her defiance to the grave. I’ve met plenty of people who are “dumb and proud of it,” but they were mostly harmless and simply uneducated. Trumpism takes that to a new and dangerous level.
Former President Donald Trump’s media company has forced out executives in recent days after internal allegations that its CEO, former Rep. Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company, according to interviews and records of communications among former employees.
Several people involved with Trump Media believe the ousters are retaliation following what they describe as an anonymous “whistleblower” complaint regarding Nunes that went to the company’s board of directors.
The chief operating officer and chief product officer have left the company, along with at least two lower-level staffers, according to interviews, social media posts and communications between former staffers reviewed by ProPublica. The company, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, disclosed the departure of the chief operating officer in a securities filing Thursday afternoon.
ProPublica has not seen the whistleblower complaint. But several people with knowledge of the company said the concerns revolve around alleged mismanagement by Nunes. One person said they include allegations of misuse of funds, hiring of foreign contractors and interfering with product development.
How odd that Devin Nunes would mismanage the company considering he had absolutely no experience before he got the job. He was an excellent MAGA toady which is the only qualification for anyoneTrump hires but he doesn’t actually know how to do anything.
Truth Social is a joke and if Trump loses the election it will die the minute Trump cashes out which he will do the minute he gets the chance. (The stock was up to $16 yesterday from a low of $13 last week. It was at $66 last spring. A very typical Trump business performance.) And as usual, there are a number of pending lawsuits already from and against former employees. There will be more, no doubt.
Some word of the departures became public earlier this week when former Trump Media employee Alex Gleason said in a social media post that “Truth Social in shambles. Many more people fired.”
It’s been a week. Thursday was the first day since the morning Helene’s winds hit that I’ve been able to load web pages. (An email bleep from the phone at 5:30 a.m. announced the news.) I thought I’d be able to provide a more coherent update this morning but the signal that was strong here yesterday is weaker this morning. I’m just beginning to see images those of you outside have seen all week. Friends who live on ridgetops seem to have had better luck. I see now that they’ve been on FB for a few days. Asheville Watchdog has an explainer for why cell service went out across WNC.
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So I’ve been in a news blackout since early last Friday morning except for local public radio. That’s filled with daily press conferences (and repeats) and updates from officials from ours and surrounding counties. The local volunteer effort has been massive.
This is an effort led by my friend, our Register of Deeds.
You know it’s a disaster zone when World Central Kitchen shows up. I’ve donated to them for years (hint, hint). Never expected to be eating their food. Brought WCK meals back to an aging neighbor who’d been eating bologna out of his five-day-dead refrigerator. (His power is back. Mine is not.)
Digby passed along this post from José Andrés about some of the disinfo that’s going around. And conspiracy theories. Ex: Why did it take FEMA days to get here? The mayor reports FEMA had boots on the ground last Thursday before the storm hit.
This is a lie! Actually @nationalguard has an amazing operation out of Asheville….thousands of them! More helicopters I’ve ever seen in an operation….tones of goods dropped….I see civilian planes landing, civilian helicopters delivering. As @WCKitchen helicopter no issues! https://t.co/PHTIv7YO6gpic.twitter.com/J2c8tiQeGt
I expect what this dude above says he’s done he’s done. That doesn’t mean no one else is busy bringing rescue and relief supplies to people stuck in remote coves cut off by road. But there are thousands of those scattered across 25 counties (1/4 of the state). If he and his buddies are the first to arrive at one, good on them. But I’ve seen Chinooks and Blackhawks in the skies for days as well as civilian choppers. The effort is massive. WCK is loading SUVs full of meals and delivering them I know not where across the county and the region (by helicopter as well).
I can’t speak for those cut off in remote valleys. Or for my friend, Canton’s Mayor Zeb Smathers (about a half hour west). But a few personal observations from a guy in the most accessible city in the region. Friends and relatives keep offering aid. How can we help? What do you need?
People want to help. That’s wonderful. But unless you have special skills in disaster relief, your best bet is to stay home and donate to some of the relief groups Digby linked to. We’re already awash in relief supplies on street corners and in parking lots.
To avoid a darkened traffic signal the other day, I cut through a closed Fresh Market parking lot. There were two tractor trailers filled with cases of bottled water volunteers were giving out. A guy practically threw a case at me. (I now have four cases of bottled water I haven’t touched.)
Earlier, I took an aerial tour over Western North Carolina to survey the damage. What I saw was heartbreaking.
But back on the ground, we’re witnessing neighbors helping neighbors, volunteers and workers standing side-by-side, people leaning on each other.
There are pallets of water at Home Depot (it’s open and powered up). A religious group had trailers parked in their lot. One of their volunteers offered me a meal from a stack in her shopping cart. I felt bad not taking one. I’d just had lunch courtesy of José Andrés and my own past donations. And I’m pretty sure that was President Joe Biden and Gov. Roy Cooper who flew over in an Osprey flanked by gunships.
The grocery stores here in town are opening back up. The real needs are in remote areas you won’t help by sending supplies into the city except to shelters and collection points for them. Donate to the people who know what’s needed instead.
Otherwise, Asheville’s water system is down for weeks. “Catastrophically damaged.” So back to bottled water. Relatives and friends want to send in bottled water. The real water problem is for flushing and bathing and washing clothes. And unless you can install a spring in my front yard, bottles of water won’t help. We’re out collecting flushing and bathing water in containers filled from lakes, springs and drain pipes.
And I sprained my right foot while canvassing last week just before the rains arrived. So I’m not much good for volunteerism requiring much lifting, walking or standing just now. It’s been a week.
I’ve directed one thousand military personnel from Fort Liberty to help the North Carolina National Guard provide critical supplies to isolated communities.
We’ve deployed 67 Starlink satellites so that folks in places like Canton can call for help and reach their loved ones.…
Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Kamala Harris for president: “Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. His disdain for the sanctity of our Constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law and the sanctity of the peaceful… pic.twitter.com/Uwoa3yj1FE
Trump has been lying about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, claiming that they are ignoring Republican areas to favor their own voters. It’s nonsense of course.
But E&E News by Politico has found new evidence that that is exactly what Trump did when was president:
But a review of Trump’s record by POLITICO’s E&E News and interviews with two former Trump White House officials show that the former president was flagrantly partisan at times in response to disasters and on at least three occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states.
Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.
But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.
“We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials.
The exchange — not previously reported — drew a dumbfounded response on social media Thursday from President Joe Biden, who summed up Trump’s attitude as: “You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you.”
“It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it,” Biden posted on X, reacting to a tweet about an earlier version of this article.
Tina Peters, just sentenced to 9 years in prison, told the judge that people who want her to go to prison are in trouble because God doesn’t like people messing w/his kids & she is a child of God. She then said she couldn’t go to prison because she sleeps on a special mattress. pic.twitter.com/vKI1iOvdfG
The former Mesa, Colorado Clerk who was in charge of administering the 2020 election in that county was sentenced today by Judge Matthew Barrett to a total of 9 years in prison for illegally hacking voting systems in her care and tampering with voting data.
Peters is a close ally and friend of Mike Lindell and was carrying out her efforts to attempt to prove that Donald Trump won the 2020 election due to fraud with voting machines. Despite being the person who facilitated, encouraged, and initiated Peters’s criminal conduct, Lindell was conspicuously absent from the hearing and did not speak on her behalf.
Peters was convicted by a jury in August of 7 of the 10 criminal counts against her. Peters allowed access to confidential voter data to private individuals affiliated with Lindell, one illegally entered into the offices using the identity of authorized software engineer with the county. The innocent person whose identity was stolen was under investigation for months because of Peters’ fraud.
Peters remained unrepentant and unapologetic during and after the trial, asserted that she did nothing wrong. Law enforcement investigators, prosecutors, a jury and a judge disagreed. After she was convicted, she claimed that the Deep State rigged her trial because the judge didn’t allow her to present evidence that people in Serbia rigged our 2020 election.
On some level you have to feel sorry for someone like this. She has been brainwashed by MAGA and she foolishly acted on the propaganda she received. On the other hand, this woman has shown herself to be a real piece of work.
A lot of people are paying for Donald Trump’s Big Lie. I wonder if they’re ever going to realize they were duped by the man who is still walking free and may never pay any price for it?
At Mar-a-Lago in 2022, Trump called Tina Peters a “rock star,” praised her work investigating his false election claims, and said he would look at endorsing her.
Peters was just sentenced to 9 years in prison for illegally hacking voting systems.
Melania Trump doubled down in her first public response to news of her passionate support for abortion rights, a position starkly at odds with that of her husband, Donald Trump, and the Republican party he leads.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” the former first lady said in a video released on Thursday. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does, ‘My body, my choice’ really mean?”
Set to classical music and posted to social media, Trump’s words were a paraphrase of those in her forthcoming memoir, Melania, which the Guardian revealed on Wednesday.
On the page, Trump says: “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.
As Trump said when they came to tell him that Mike Pence was in danger: “so what?”
Melania Trump believes in nothing, She’s been missing in action for the past 3 years and has come out now to grift and sell her book. I’m quite sure the campaign said, “hey Melania, put in you book that you’re pro-choice, ok? It might help with the bitches.” I’m sure she said “I really don’t care, do u?”
This is actually an old GOP ploy. Back in the day Barbara and Laura Bush were always coy about their abortion position. It was clearly a tactic to try to dog whistle some pro-choice Republicans into believing their husbands weren’t as hard core as they seemed.
But that was before the Republicans caught the car. They can’t finesse this issue anymore knowing that the right is protected under the Constitution. And nobody takes Melania Trump seriously about anything.
“He’s a deranged person,” Trump said of Special Counsel Jack Smith. “He just lost the big documents case, that was the biggest of them all.” In August, Smith formally filed to appeal a district court judge’s dismissal of the case in July.
“This was a weaponization of government and this is why it was released 30 days before the election,” Trump said. “And it’s nothing new in there, by the way, nothing new. They rigged the election. I didn’t rig the election. They rigged the election.” He repeated those claims numerous times throughout.
The former president criticized Smith for releasing the documents despite the fact he claimed he was nonplussed over the information. “They should have never allowed the information to come before the public,” he said, adding, “My poll numbers have gone up instead of down. It is pure election interference.”
His poll numbers have not gone up but he needs to say it to soothe himself and convince his cult followers that the election was rigged if he loses again.
As I wrote in the previous post, it’s doubtful that any of this will make the slightest dent in his MAGA support. He literally could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose them. But there are independents and some still squishy Liz Cheney Republicans who hate the January 6th stuff and are being reminded of just what a miscreant he is.
.@SarahLongwell25: “With swing voters and these sort of right-leaning independent soft GOP voters reminding them about January 6. That is the number one way to sort of push those voters back away from Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/mRoOX2njQv
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 2, 2024
Many Republicans just refuse to believe their own eyes. And those that do believe their own eyes apparently don’t give a damn that Trump tried to overturn an election and incited an insurrection.
Why don’t Republicans think the statement about Georgia — referring to a conversation in which Trump said that he wanted officials to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have” — is believable? Perhaps in part because right-wing media hasn’t spent a lot of time talking about Trump’s actions. That includes limited coverage of the House select committee, and it includes less coverage of things like the Georgia call.
Trump’s request to the officials has often been summarized as his asking them to “find 11,000 votes.” Since January 2021, when The Post first reported on the call, there have been 475 15-second segments on the three most popular cable news channels in which those words appear. Only 44 of them were on Fox News.
When Fox News has covered the Georgia call, as it did more frequently in August 2023 at the time that Trump was indicted in the state, it has often done so in a way that’s overtly sympathetic to Trump’s position.
Judge Jeanine Pirro said, “If you say, ‘Look, I need to find 11,000 votes. That’s very different from saying, ‘I need you to find 11,000 votes somewhere.’”
???? Talk about dancing on the head of a pin.
CNN polls show that “7 in 10 [Republicans] have consistently said they thought the election wasn’t legitimate. The only change has been that, in January 2021, more than half said there was solid evidence to that effect. Now, far more are likely to say that this is only their suspicion.”
Bump continues:
Trump’s supporters and members of his party have excused his actions from the outset. In January 2021, Monmouth University asked Americans whether they approved of the House impeaching Trump for his post-2020 efforts. Most Americans said they did — but only 3 in 10 Republicans agreed. In polling conducted by Pew Research Center earlier this year — after more than four years of additional evidence coming to light, about half of Republicans said Trump did nothing wrong in his efforts to subvert the last election.
It’s those kinds of findings that make me despair about this country. Nothing he does will separate these people from Dear Leader:
This pattern is very much in keeping with polling over Trump’s presidency. Views of Trump’s actions didn’t change over the course of the Russia investigation or over the course of his first impeachment, with Republicans generally unmoved by the aggregation of evidence against him. The 2020 response was no different. The argument from Trump critics that his actions subverted democracy simply haven’t gotten traction from members of his party willing to excuse them.
He can literally do no wrong with these people.
How do you deprogram 40 million people from a cult?
I realize there’s a lot going on. But the future of the nation, possibly the world, is on the line in this election and it is the most important story right now even with the middle east on fire and a major disaster in the southeast. It’s not old news.
This is why the NY Times is getting such blowback. It’s not generally the reporting itself, much of which is as great as ever. It’s the editorial decision making that’s the problem. The headlines, the reflexive “both sides” framing, the way they downplay the Trump story because he’s been behaving like a monstrous cretin for years so they are inured to it. It’s not just them but as the paper of record it looms large.
That Clinton front page arguably brought us Trump in 2016. The coverage of that penny ante email scandal, breaking when it did, was so over the top that people were convinced she was uniquely corrupt and unfit to be president. Look what that got us. Now they are “adjusting” by downplaying the monumental crimes and corruption of the man who is uniquely corrupt and unfit to be president — the same man who benefited from their skewed coverage eight years ago.
It shouldn’t be hard for the press to care about preserving democracy. Their survival, and ours, depends on it.
