Tina Peters, the Republican former county clerk and right-wing folk hero, was found guilty Monday on four of seven felony counts against her, and guilty of all three misdemeanor counts. The charges related to one of the most significant Peters’ defense from mentioning any claim that Hayes was working for the federal government ― a would-be justification for concealing his identity. (There’s no proof of Hayes supposedly working with the government, and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told the court the FBI confirmed Hayes was never an informant.)
Case told the jury, rather, that “Clerk Peters made one decision: She made a decision to protect the identity of Conan Hayes, because he said he couldn’t do the work that needed to be done if his identity was revealed” ― a comment that drew an objection from the defense for assuming “facts not in evidence.” Later, Case wondered aloud why the prosecution hadn’t called Hayes as a witness. “Well, did the background check show that he was a CIA asset, or an NSA–.” The prosecution interjected with another objection.
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Later, Case said that rather than evaluating the case based on who was “harmed” ― no one, he’d argued ― the jury should consider who Tina Peters’ actions had “threatened,” namely “Dominion and the secretary of state,” he said. Shapiro objected, saying it was an “improper argument.” Barrett sustained the objection.
There’s no evidence that Mesa County’s elections were ever corrupted by Dominion voting machines, or anything else. As a result of the breach in Mesa County, the Colorado secretary of state’s office decertified the existing machines, and county officials voted to replace them with new Dominion machines, at a higher cost, in 2021.
The prosecution concluded closing arguments with a rebuttal to the defense, painting Peters as the engine of a conspiracy that connected national election conspiracy theorists with collaborators in Mesa County.
“The defendant was a fox guarding the henhouse,” Janet Drake, a deputy attorney general in the Colorado attorney general’s office, told the jury. “It was her job to protect the election equipment, and she turned on it, and used her power for her own advantage.”
