The Department of Justice presented on Monday a very unusual motion indicating its intention to review a state sentence of a Trump ally that was sentenced to nine years in prison for leading a security violation of the electoral computer system of his county after the presidential elections of 2020.
The former table of table county, Colorado, the secretary, Tina Peters, was sentenced last October for giving an individual affiliated with the CEO of Mypillow, Mike Lindell, an ally of President Donald Trump who amplified the false electoral statements, access to the electoral software he used for his county. Software screenshots then appeared on right -wing websites that in turn used it to further promote the unfounded statements of electoral fraud.
At the beginning of last month, Peters He filed a motion With the Federal District Court in Colorado seeking to challenge its guilt verdict.
On Monday, the head of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, Yaakov Roth, presented a Declaration of interest With the court, urging a judge to give a “rapid and careful consideration” to the concerns that Peters’s lawyer has raised his case.
“Reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Mrs. Peters,” Roth said in the presentation. “Consequently, the United States respectfully states that the concerns raised in the request order, at least, a rapid and careful consideration by this court (and, at the appropriate time, in the Courts of Colorado Appeals).”
The candidate Tina Peters speaks during a debate for the state leadership position, February 25, 2023, in Hudson, Colo.
David Zalubowski/AP, file
The Department of Justice does not have the legal authority to unilaterally annul the sentences at the state level. However, some critics have expressed concern that such intervention highlights a worrying will on the part of the officials appointed by Trump in the Department of Justice to help the president’s allies, while increasing the possibility of compensation against their political opponents.
Roth’s presentation also states that the case of Peters fits a broader review in the “Cases throughout the country” Department that the presentation argues that it can be “abuses of the criminal justice process.”
“This review will include an evaluation of the prosecution of the State of Colorado of Mrs. Peters and, in particular, if the case was” oriented more towards the inflicence of political pain than towards the search for real justice or legitimate government objectives, “said the presentation.
“Nothing about the prosecution of Mrs. Peters was politically motivated,” said the Table County District, Daniel Rubinstein, in response to a request for ABC comments. “In one of the most conservative jurisdictions in Colorado, the same voters who chose Mrs. Peters, also chose the Republican District prosecutor who handled the prosecution, and the Republican Board of County Commissioners who unanimously requested the prosecution of Mrs. Peters on behalf of the citizens he victimized.”
“Mrs. Peters was accused of a grand jury of her companions and convicted in the trial for the jury of her companions she selected,” Rubenstein said.
