Tina Peters was a county clerk in western Colorado who was convicted of tampering with voting machines, as she tried to show that Trump had won the election. Although she certified that the election was fair, she allowed an unauthorized person to access Mesa County’s voting machines and copy their hard drives. In her conservative county, she was sentenced to nine years in prison. President Trump was furious that one of his avid supporters was in prison, and he pressured Democratic Governor Jared Polis to commute her sentence. In mid-May, Polis ordered Peters’ release, and she was freed on June 1.
Many Democrats were appalled that Polis would set free a prominent and unrepentant election denier.
Two members of the Governor’s clemency board went public in opposing his decision. Polis fired them.
Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado on Wednesday fired two members of his clemency board after they spoke out against his decision to commute the prison sentence of the election denier Tina Peters.
The board members, Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi, had objected to Mr. Polis’s decision in May to release Ms. Peters from prison after pressure from President Trump.
After the commutation, Ms. Proff and Ms. Taslimi revealed that the board — appointed by Mr. Polis — had twice voted unanimously to reject Ms. Peters’s application for a shortened sentence. Mr. Polis, a Democrat, has the final decision, and overruled the board.
The board normally operates in secret, and does not disclose the pardon and commutation recommendations it makes to the governor. Ms. Proff and Ms. Taslimi said they had been compelled to pierce that veil of secrecy in Ms. Peters’s case.
On Wednesday, they said they had paid the price. They received a letter from the governor saying they were being dismissed for violating the board’s confidentiality standards.
“You breached the required duty of confidentiality by publicly divulging board members’ votes,” Mr. Polis wrote to each of the women, who shared the letters with The New York Times.
Ms. Peters, a former county clerk in conservative western Colorado, had been sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted in 2024 in a plot to tamper with voting machines under her control in an attempt to show that the 2020 election had been rigged against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump spent months attacking Mr. Polis and demanding that he free Ms. Peters, but Mr. Polis has said that the president’s harangues played no part in his commutation decision.
On Wednesday, Ms. Proff and Ms. Taslimi said they had known that they might be removed. The women, who are former public defenders now working as lawyers in Denver, said the public had a right to know how the governor’s clemency board had grappled with one of the most consequential cases to ever cross its desk.
Still, they said they were disappointed in Mr. Polis.
The dissenters: Azra Taslimi and Hannah Seigel Proff
“He’s saying the public doesn’t have the right to know his own advisory board told him no — twice,” Ms. Taslimi said. “He’s not protecting a process. He’s protecting himself from scrutiny.”
Ms. Peters has hardly stayed in the shadows since getting paroled. She has appeared on right-wing podcasts and a conservative “Freedom Fest” event in Colorado, where she continued to promote election conspiracies. This week, she met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
With Dems–er, Dumbs–like Polis & Fetterman–we’re in fine shape for 250.
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Fetterman should run as a Republican next time.
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Are you paying attention to this election season? I am worried that once again we will have disaffected people acting as the right wing Republicans’ useful idiots by amplifying the right wing propaganda that gets voters to hate the Dems and empower the Republicans.
With people on our side helping to make the word “Democrat” into something that no voter should support, we’re not in fine shape for 250.
Polis isn’t running again, and there was just a Democratic primary for Governor and it was won by a progressive. Just like progressives are able to win other primaries when they actually get out there with a good message instead of just bashing the entire Democratic party. (AOC is great at that, keeping her eye on the real problem – the Republicans).
Polis deserves all the criticisms he is getting! What he did was inexcusable. If he were running again, I would make a political contribution to his challenger even though I don’t live in Colorado. Because unlike the false narratives to get people to hate Dems that the Republicans have successful used to take over this country, voters have power in the Democratic party. A leftist challenger defeated a progressive but less progressive incumbent for a Congressional seat in Colorado, too.
Living in NYC, where instead of just trying to undermine the entire party, the Democratic Socialists worked to win Democratic primaries, I no longer have patience for those who don’t understand that undermining the entire Democratic party is doing the Republicans dirty work for them.
Sometimes the primary voters will pick a candidate that I don’t like. That’s democracy. But they can be defeated and pressured IF they are a Democrat. Fetterman will very likely be gone the next election, and I know many Pennsylvania voters who voted for him who can’t wait to defeat him. Fetterman was one of the first local PA politicians to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016, and in 2022 Bernie Sanders endorsed Fetterman for Senate and worked hard campaigning for him. Some people think Fetterman’s stroke changed him, but who knows. He will have a hard time winning the Democratic primary in 2028 but may leave the party by then.
But even Fetterman at his worst is better than Susan Collins (he still supports some progressive economic ideas). Polis at his worst is better than Susan Collins. As long as the “bad” Dems don’t join the Republicans in trying to end democracy, the bad Dems can be replaced. IF voters want. In the meantime, I will support primary challenges to Democrats who don’t reflect my values, but I will also work to elect a Democrat against a Republican if the majority of primary voters choose a Democratic candidate who only reflects some of my views.
Given the big money that was behind the losing incumbent candidates in NYC and Colorado, it’s time for people to help make “Democrat” something that is positive instead of negative. Challengers with little money can win. If voters agree with their message.
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In the age of Trump and MAGA, the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican.
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Headline should read: Jared Polis kisses the OFCFPP’s arse.
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