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DJT
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

"FREE TINA!" became the rallying cry of the Republican Party over the past two years. Tina Peters just came to the White House to thank me for getting her released from prison in Colorado. She was put there because she found Election Fraud, but instead of arresting the people that committed the Fraud, they arrested her! They gave her nine years in jail, and she served two, much time in solitary confinement along with hardened criminals and murderers, and then I got the Republican Party into gear, and she was released. Tina is 70-years-old, suffered a major bout with cancer, but hopefully is now cancer free. What she went through should never happen to anyone again. Just think of it, she caught the Democrats cheating, and they put her in jail for Voter Fraud. They didn't want her out there speaking to the Media. She knows that the Voting Machines are RIGGED, that the Mail In Ballots are a DISASTER, and that our Elections are very Dangerous and Corrupt at a time when, with the Threat of Communism, we must be very wise and careful! It was an Honor to have lunch with her. I was fortunate, my Vote in 2024 was TOO BIG TO RIG, but they tried. There wasn't a thing they could do about it, but not everyone is in that position. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP

3:30 PM · June 30, 2026 · archived post

False

She was not jailed for finding fraud. And the man who freed her is a Democrat.

The short version

A jury convicted Tina Peters on seven counts for deceiving state officials and letting a Mike Lindell associate copy her county's voting systems under a false identity. Fraud was not among the charges, and no fraud was ever found in Mesa County, including by the audit she signed herself. She left prison because Colorado's Democratic governor commuted her sentence, after every federal attempt failed and after Trump's own claimed pardon proved powerless against a state conviction. What was genuinely contested, by an appeals court and the governor alike, was the length of her sentence. The crime never was.

Start with what she was actually convicted of, because "Voter Fraud" is not on the list. In August 2024 a Mesa County jury found her guilty on seven of ten counts: three felonies for attempting to influence a public servant, one felony conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and three misdemeanors including official misconduct. Every count was about deception she committed as clerk, not about anything she found.

What she did is not seriously in dispute. Ahead of a scheduled 2021 software update, she arranged a security badge for one man, had the secure room's cameras turned off, and let a different man, an election conspiracy activist affiliated with Mike Lindell, use that badge to copy the county's election system hard drives. The system's passwords and forensic images then surfaced on conspiracy forums and at Lindell's 2021 symposium, and the state had to decertify and replace Mesa County's equipment.

And the fraud she supposedly found? In November 2020, Peters herself signed Mesa County's post-election audit finding no discrepancies. The investigation that followed her claims, run by the county's Republican district attorney, found "extensive evidence" her conclusions were false: the database anomalies she called proof were caused by her own elections manager troubleshooting a stuck process, all of it on time-stamped video. No court, in five years, has credited any of it. What the episode did produce was harm to her own county: the leaked passwords and images forced Mesa County to scrap its voting equipment, at a cost the Secretary of State puts at nearly $1 million. At sentencing, the judge told her: "You are no hero. You abused your position and you're a charlatan." Hold that quote loosely: an appeals court later faulted how that same judge weighed her public statements at sentencing, which is part of this story too, below.

Who actually freed her. #

"I got her released" has a specific problem: every federal lever failed, and the release came from a man Trump had condemned to hell six months earlier.

March 2025Trump's Justice Department filed a statement of interest in her federal case, suggesting her prosecution was political. A federal judge denied her release anyway in December 2025. The federal route failed.
December 11, 2025Trump announced he had pardoned her. Presidents cannot pardon state crimes, and the Colorado Court of Appeals later said so directly: "the President's pardon does not reach Peters's state offenses." She stayed in prison for almost six more months.
December 31, 2025Trump called Governor Jared Polis a "Scumbag" and the Republican DA who prosecuted her "disgusting," adding, "May they rot in Hell." He was attacking, not persuading, the one man with the power to free her.
April 2, 2026The Colorado Court of Appeals unanimously upheld all seven convictions but vacated her sentence, finding the judge had improperly weighed her protected speech. Not fraud vindicated: a sentencing-fairness ruling.
May 15, 2026Democratic Governor Jared Polis commuted her sentence to 4 years and 4.5 months, calling nine years "an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes." He says he never spoke to Trump about it, and that her views are "conspiratorial... not accurate, not true. But that is not a crime."
June 1, 2026Released on parole. Not exonerated: her convictions stand, she is on three years of parole, and she cannot leave Colorado without her parole officer's permission. Her White House trip required it.

Trump's pressure campaign was real and sustained. Whether it moved Polis is unknowable: Polis denies it, his own clemency board voted no twice and he overrode them, and the ruling he cited came from judges, not politicians. But even the most generous reading, that the pressure helped, leaves the post wrong about what it actually claims. She was freed by the man Trump had condemned to hell, through a state power no president holds, on grounds a court had already handed him.

The rest of the post, checked. #

"They gave her nine years in jail, and she served two"Roughly right. The sentence was nine years behind bars (8.5 in prison plus 6 months in jail), and she served 606 days, her own count on release day: about a year and eight months, close enough to two. Where the numbers check out, we say so.
"Much time in solitary confinement"One reported episode, in November 2025, which the Colorado Department of Corrections disputed: it said she "was not in solitary confinement" and "was returned to the general population later that evening." No reporting supports extended solitary confinement.
"She knows that the Voting Machines are RIGGED"The data taken in the breach she enabled has been public since 2021. It showed no rigging. That is the record of her own evidence.

What is true here. #

The honest kernel

The appeals court really did find that her sentence was improperly influenced by her protected speech, and a nine-year term for a first-time, nonviolent offender really was unusual. Those were the grounds Polis cited, and they are legitimate civil-liberties concerns whoever the defendant is.

None of that makes the fraud real. The jury convicted her, the appeals court affirmed every conviction unanimously, and a federal judge declined to intervene. The sentence was the debate. The crime never was.

Read next

This is one post in a running series that sets a recent Truth Social claim beside the record. The post text is reproduced verbatim from the archived original; the rendering above is ours, not a screenshot. The case record is drawn from the Mesa County jury verdict, the Colorado Court of Appeals opinion of April 2, 2026, the governor's commutation, and the named reporting linked throughout, as of July 2026. Corrections welcome.