More:A jury found Tina Peters guilty. Her legal troubles might not be over.
The status of a yearslong federal investigation, in addition to the local case in Mesa County, remains uncertain
Quentin Young
What happened in Mesa County has been the subject of a yearslong federal investigation on top of the local district attorney’s investigation that brought Peters to trial in recent weeks. Federal authorities have communicated very little about the case, but we know the federal probe persisted to this year from other sources.
And there is reason to believe more criminal charges could come Peters’ way.
It started in 2021, when FBI agents executed search warrants at Peters’ home and the homes of several of her associates, including conspiracist Sherronna Bishop, who during the trial was portrayed as a Peters go-between for national election-denying operators. In September 2022, FBI agents in Minnesota working on the Mesa County investigation seized Lindell’s phone. As late as January, Peters’ lawyers in a document filed with the U.S. appellate court in Denver said, “The Department of Justice, including the FBI, has continued its investigation to determine if any federal crime had been committed by Peters.”
An FBI spokesperson this week declined to comment on the case, as did a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver.
There appear to be several potential criminal charges of interest to federal authorities, as well as several possible targets. The state case against Peters, brought by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, largely focused on her dishonesty, such as when she presented to state election officials the California man, conspiracist Conan Hayes, as Gerald Wood, a Fruita resident who had been approved to enter secure elections areas in Peters’ office.
Peters is Colorado’s most notorious “big lie” believer, and her place in the firmament of MAGA bandits was cemented by national press attention and her association with prominent election conspiracists like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. This week’s verdict advances the country’s reckoning with the harm that came from misinformation around the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won. It joins the suspension in May of former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis’ law license in Colorado, as well as the criminal prosecution of those accused of interfering in the election on Trump’s behalf around the country, in reassuring Americans that their institutions, in some cases, are still capable of impartial feats of democracy and justice.
We have clues about how federal authorities view the matter. The FBI’s search warrants for Bishop and Lindell both pointed to parts of federal law related to intentional damage to a protected computer and conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer. The warrants also variously cite identity theft, conspiracy to commit identity theft, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and the Lindell search warrant mentions as “co-conspirators” Peters, Bishop, Hayes, Lindell and others.
Dan Hartman, an attorney for Peters, told Newsline this week that he does not expect federal charges to emerge for his client.
But even if Peters or others who were involved in the Mesa County election security breach face federal charges, no degree of accountability in the case can satisfy the nation’s need for justice so long as the person ultimately responsible goes unpunished.
https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/08/15 ... y-federal/