The U.S. Department of Justice, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, said in a court filing Monday that it will “review” the prosecution of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted in a breach of her county’s election system carried out in an attempt to prove election conspiracies.
A top Justice Department lawyer wrote in a court filing Monday that the review “will include an evaluation of the state of Colorado’s prosecution of Ms. Peters and, in particular, whether the case was ‘oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.’”
The filing, made in federal court in Denver, came in a long shot appeal Peters filed last month in federal court seeking to unwind her conviction and jail and prison sentence. Peters, 69, is being held in the Larimer County jail as part of a six-month jail sentence that is to precede a nine-year prison term.
The two-page “statement of interest” filed by the Justice Department was submitted by Yaakov M. Roth, acting assistant attorney general in the department’s civil division. Also named in the filing are J. Bishop Grewell, the acting U.S. attorney for Colorado, and Peter McNeilly, an assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado.
The statement cites an executive order signed by Trump on Jan. 20, the day he took office.
Roth did not offer details on the Justice Department’s review of Peters’ case, nor did he provide a timeline. He did, however, encourage the judge overseeing Peters’ appeal to give it “prompt and careful consideration.”
“Reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’ case,” Roth wrote. “These concerns relate to, among other things, the exceptionally lengthy sentence imposed relative to the conduct at issue.”
The filing, first reported by The New York Times, comes as the Justice Department has been roiled in recent weeks by Trump administration efforts to influence prosecutions. The most high-profile example has been in the criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, which was dropped at the direction of Justice Department leaders, prompting resignations of top prosecutors.
Adams’ prosecution was in federal court, whereas Peters’ case was handled in state court. Since the Peters prosecution happened in state court, the Department of Justice cannot unilaterally influence the conviction.
Peters, a Republican who supports Trump, was prosecuted by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican, with help from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. She was convicted in August and sentenced in October.
Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public official; conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation; official misconduct; violation of duty; and failure to comply with an order of the Secretary of State. She was acquitted of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, criminal impersonation and identity theft.
Prosecutors said Peters concocted a scheme to capture images and data during a sensitive election system software update in 2021. The information was then posted online as part of efforts to prove baseless claims that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Peters is also appealing her conviction in state court.
