I almost feel sorry for Tina Peters.
Almost. But not quite.
I mean, she deserved the nine-year prison sentence she received for election tampering. No one should attempt, as she and her supporters do, to minimize the seriousness of her crimes. The former Mesa County clerk was a knowing participant in nothing less than a plot — if a half-baked plot, featuring as star players a professional surfer and a pillow salesman — to undermine American democracy.
And for this plot, she became a hero in certain circles — the kind of insanely drawn circles in which Donald Trump can call Peters “a rock star.”
Whatever Peters says, she clearly has no remorse. In fact, to this day, she continues to spread the evidence-free lie of a rigged 2020 election in Mesa County every chance she gets.
And also to this day, she paints herself as the victim of a conspiracy when, in truth, she is the one who corrupted her office and abused her authority in the service of a bogus election conspiracy.
When sentencing Peters, 21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett was clearly offended by Peters’ lack of any genuine remorse. Or maybe it was Peters’ claim that the deep state — she really said this — was responsible for her husband’s decision to divorce her. Or maybe it was when she said she couldn’t possibly go to prison — she really said this, too — because she requires a “magnetic” mattress. I guess she’ll have to just settle for a MyPillow substitute.
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In any case, Barrett held little back in saying there were several things about the case that were “crystal clear” in his mind.
Then he listed them.
”You are no hero,” Barrett told Peters. “You abused your position. And you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that has been proven to be junk time and time again.”
She used that position, he said, in pursuit of “power, a following and fame.” And he had no choice, he said, but to sentence her to prison because “I’m convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen.”
So, given all that, given that the judge went on to say that Peters lies as easily as she breathes, why would I feel even the least bit sorry for her?
I bet you know the answer.
Just hours after Peters, the charlatan, was led off to jail, Donald Trump, the Charlatan in Chief, was addressing a rally in Michigan. “We won, we won,” Trump shouted to the crowd. “It was a rigged election.”
That’s the same Donald Trump whose election-rigging Big Lie seduced Peters and, let’s face it, tens of millions of other Republicans into believing that he actually won the 2020 election — and the same Donald Trump who now may be heading back to the White House.
The wild cheering for Trump from the Michigan crowd, on the day Peters was sentenced, was loud validation for the Big Lie.
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And now, despite everything, Trump stands, according to the polls, a 50-50 chance of being elected again. And if Trump wins, he’ll obviously dismiss whatever federal charges he may face related to his actions. Unfortunately for Peters, she is doing time on state charges, so Trump, even as president, wouldn’t be able to pardon her.
So, yes, Peters lies in a jail cell — without her magnetic mattress — while Trump tells lies on the campaign trail and may never face anything resembling justice.
It only gets worse. Two nights before Peters was led off to jail, JD Vance had refused to answer a debate question asking whether Trump had lost the 2020 election. Not only that, Vance pronounced, in the most bizarre kind of January 6 revisionism, that Trump had given up power peacefully. Yes, and your migrant neighbors are backyard-barbecuing adorable puppies and kitties.
To that point, Vance had smoothly lied his way to what looked like a debate victory over Tim Walz, who may be America’s coach but is clearly not America’s debater. But Vance’s “damning non-answer” will be the only thing anyone remembers from the debate.
In a coincidence — or maybe you’re among those who believe there are no coincidences — Peters was being led off to jail even as the Big Lie she championed was dominating national headlines.
Just the day before Peters’ sentencing, a judge had released special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page brief detailing Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Smith’s brief is an attempt to salvage a case that has been sabotaged from on high — a case in which the Supreme Court has pretended to find something in the Constitution that grants a president immunity for, among other crimes, attempting to subvert democracy.
The brief shows how Trump repeatedly was told by advisers that he had, in fact, lost the election and how, in every case, he willfully ignored the truth. The brief says that Trump was happily watching TV while the mob stormed the Capitol and while he refused to do anything to stop them. And it tells us that when an aide told Trump that Mike Pence had to be evacuated as the mob closed in on him, Trump replied, “So what?”
Meanwhile, on the very day Peters was sentenced, Liz Cheney, of the very Republican Cheneys, was in Wisconsin bravely speaking at a rally in support of Kamala Harris. But more than supporting Harris, she was once again indicting Trump, calling him unfit to be president and citing “the danger that Donald Trump poses” to the country.
But as Liz Cheney, who risked her career to call out Trump when she was serving on the January 6 House committee, appeared with Harris, what struck me most was the many craven Republicans who weren’t on that stage denouncing Trump and supporting Harris as the only sane alternative.
People like George W. Bush. Or Mitt Romney. If Dick Cheney, of all people, can support Harris, why not Mitch McConnell, who has repeatedly called out Trump as unfit for office and said he was “practically and morally responsible” for January 6? Instead, McConnell announced he would vote for Trump.
The list of craven Republican officials, who, like JD Vance, insult Trump when he’s not looking and then loudly support him, is long and deep and ultimately almost too depressing to consider.
Instead, I’ll just try to imagine Trump someday standing before a judge like Matthew Barrett, listening to words not unlike those Barrett said to Peters.
In his sentencing statement, Barrett told her that the government cannot function when people, like Peters, believe “the power they’ve been given is absolute in all respects.”
He continued: “You have no respect for the checks and balances of government. You have no respect for this court. You have no respect for law enforcement. You have no respect for your colleagues.”
What the judge said to Peters was absolutely true. But what’s unfair — what’s maddeningly unjust — is that it’s entirely possible no judge will ever say those words to Donald Trump.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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