Fact check: Colorado governor’s misleading rationale for freeing election denier Tina Peters | CNN Politics

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis justified his decision to release election denier Tina Peters from prison with a series of false and misleading claims, inaccurately distancing her case from efforts to undermine the 2020 election. The former Mesa County clerk is set to be freed from state prison in two weeks, after Polis’ commutation cut her sentence in half. A jury convicted Peters of conspiring with allies of President Donald Trump to breach voting systems in her county in 2021, in hopes of proving his 2020 fraud claims. Polis, a term-limited Democrat, granted the commutation Friday. He justified his decision in a series of press interviews, including with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, where he said the new 4 ½-year sentence was “tough but fair.” He needed to “effectively resentence her,” Polis told local affiliate KCNC, in light of a recent ruling from the Colorado Court of Appeals that threw out her original nine-year sentence. The appeals court said the trial judge improperly based part of the punishment on Peters’ protected speech about elections. Much of Polis’ rationale related to these First Amendment concerns. He said Peters holds “crazy” and “dangerous” belief