Trump hosts election denier Tina Peters for strategy summit at White House as midterms look grim: insider
Por Brendan Rascius — – World RSS Feed
Trump hosts election denier Tina Peters for strategy summit at White House as midterms look grim: insider
The former Colorado elections clerk became a cause célèbre among Trump and his MAGA supporters after she was imprisoned
Brendan Rascius in New York Tuesday 06 October 2026 21:11 BST
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President Donald Trump met with election denier Tina Peters at the White House this week to discuss “election integrity,” a former administration official has said.
A former Colorado elections clerk, Peters became a cause célèbre among Trump and his MAGA supporters after she was convicted for her role in a breach of election equipment and subsequently imprisoned. Her sentence was commuted this summer.
Ed Martin, a former interim U.S. attorney who represented numerous defendants charged in the January 6 Capitol riot, claimed the meeting between Trump and Peters took place on Monday.
“Well, let me break some news,” Martin told Real America’s Voice host Eric Bolling during a Monday interview. “Just hours ago, maybe two hours ago, Tina Peters, you know, from Colorado, was in the Oval Office meeting with the President on election integrity, and they were talking about the plans…”
The reported summit comes one month before the November midterms, with polls suggesting Republicans could lose seats, and potentially their majorities, in both the House and Senate. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats will cheat in the midterms, echoing his longstanding, baseless assertions that the 2020 election was “rigged.”
open image in gallery“And so when Tina Peters, you know, famous Colorado clerk, was in the Oval Office today just two hours ago talking about this question, the president’s taking it seriously,” Martin said.
Martin also suggested Trump may act unilaterally if Congress failed to pass the Save America Act, GOP-backed legislation that would require proof of citizenship for new voters.
“If the Congress won’t pass the Save America Act and they won’t, then the president’s going to have to do what he’s going to do,” Martin added. “And it is not a local issue when it’s national security, and it’s clearly national security. So we’ll see how it plays out.”
When reached by The Independent, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said: “We do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened.”
open image in galleryAs the Mesa County clerk, Peters oversaw elections in the county from 2018 to 2023.
Investigators began examining her conduct in 2021 after sensitive voting system information surfaced online. Prosecutors ultimately accused her of allowing an unauthorized individual linked to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to access voting equipment during a software update while searching for evidence of election fraud.
In August 2024, a jury convicted Peters on seven of 10 charges, including four felonies. She received a nine-year sentence that October. Peters, however, maintained her innocence, saying she was trying to expose fraud in the 2020 election.
Trump spent months publicly pressing for Peters’ release, describing her as an elderly woman with cancer and repeating his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
In May, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence and she walked free. In a letter explaining his decision, Polis said Peters had committed serious crimes and deserved prison time, but called her sentence “extremely unusual and lengthy” for a first-time, nonviolent offender.
The decision attracted sharp criticism from fellow Democrats. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold called it a “dark day for democracy” and accused Polis of “selling out our state’s justice system for Trump.”
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Donald TrumpWhite HouseUS electionsColorado
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