Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters has turned her political fight with Secretary of State Jena Griswold into a personal vendetta.
Peters balked at a request by Republican Party officials Wednesday to suspend her campaign for secretary of state in the party’s primary while she is under indictment on charges related to voting machines breaches and allegations that security passwords and other proprietary information ended up in the public domain online.
The GOP has long been the party of law and order, party officials argued, and the grand jury’s indictment was based on a case brought by a Republican district attorney.
So it would be really great if Peters acted accordingly and availed herself of our judicial system, party officials explained.
Peters already demonstrated what she thinks of law and order when she was caught on tape resisting arrest for violating a judge’s direct order and secretly recorded court proceedings, for which she also faces contempt of court charges.
The wayward elections official is determined to martyr herself to the cause of Donald Trump Mike Lindell voter integrity her own vanity, and blame everyone else of having a political vendetta against her.
Griswold is certainly determined to make an example of Republicans who dare question the result of any election won by a Democrat, and Peters is undoubtably her poster child and whipping post.
But Peters needs to take serious and sober stock of her own situation, and decide whether she wants to fight her own battles to avoid spending the rest of her days in prison, or be a puppet for a lost cause that’s running around headless on a battlefield.
Last we heard, Peters and her deputy Belinda Knisley had turned themselves in to law enforcement and are both being held on cash bonds of $500,000.
(Updated: Peters has been released on a $25,000 bond and Kinsey was released on $10,000 bond.)
Anyway, here’s Peter’s statement carried by the Denver Gazette:
In a statement issued by her campaign late Wednesday, Peters blasted Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the Democrat she hopes to unseat in the fall, and (Mesa County District Attorney Daniel) Rubinstein, a Republican she derided as a “self-described never-Trumper,” saying the two “have been united in their opposition to conservative activists within the Republican Party who continue to demand more transparency in Colorado’s elections process.”
Said Peters: “Using legal muscle to indict political opponents during an election isn’t new strategy, but it’s easier to execute when you have a district attorney who despises President Trump and any constitutional conservative like myself who continues to demand all election evidence be made available to the public.”
Peters went on to suggest that the indictments were part of a scheme by Democrats and establishment Republicans to boost a less formidable GOP candidate to run against Griswold in the fall.
“But a grand jury is one of the last cards the Democrats have to play here,” she said. “They hope to influence voters enough with indictments and arrests and media drama during the primaries, to elect a weaker general election opponent for Secretary of State Jena Griswold.”
She added that, “Knowledgeable Republican voters in this June’s primary will eye-roll at these trumped-up charges. They are little more than political theatre designed to pick the primary winner.”
Republicans are kind of exhausted with all of Peters’ theatrics as well, along with the Luddites who want to abandon voting machines for paper ballots, which by the way was abolished because Democrats cheated by stuffing the ballot box, but we digress.
If Coloradans truly want to get rid of Griswold, they should look to GOP candidates who can rise above petty politics to fairly get our election house in order.
Also running are former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson and economic development specialist Mike O’Donnell.