Election denier Tina Peters ‘pushing near-Martial Law move to Trump before midterms’
White House meeting and request
Peters met Trump at the White House last month, according to a report. She and her attorney pressed for an order they characterized as equivalent to martial law ahead of the midterms.
Peters said Trump could act without asking Congress, and argued that federal authorities could investigate alleged criminal conduct. Her attorney told Axios that ballots and election equipment might need to be taken into government control to investigate before further events occurred.
Federal limits on election authority
In April 2025, a federal judge wrote that the Constitution does not give the president specific powers over elections. The judge’s statement came in an effort to prevent Trump from asserting control.
Peters served as Mesa County’s clerk from 2018 through 2023. In that role, she oversaw elections in the Colorado county.
Conviction and commuted sentence
A jury convicted Peters in August 2024 on seven of 10 charges, including four felonies, over her role in a breach of election equipment. She received a nine-year prison sentence that October and maintained that she had acted to expose fraud in the 2020 election.
In May, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’s sentence, and she was released. Polis said she had committed serious crimes and deserved prison time, while describing the nine-year term as unusually long for a first-time, nonviolent offender.
Key points
- Peters met Trump at the White House last month, according to a report.
- She and her attorney sought action they likened to martial law before the midterms.
- A jury convicted Peters on seven charges, including four felonies.
- Gov. Jared Polis commuted Peters’s sentence in May.