Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday fired two members of Colorado’s Executive Clemency Advisory Board after the pair publicly revealed that the board had twice rejected former county clerk Tina Peters’ requests for a shortened sentence.
The clemency board is a governor-appointed panel that operates in secret and makes confidential recommendations on pardons and sentence commutations to the governor. Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’ nearly nine-year prison sentence on June 1, despite objections from prominent members of his own party and several county clerks.
Polis’ office told The Colorado Sun late Wednesday that the board members violated confidentiality essential to the clemency process. The firings were first reported by The New York Times.
Peters, a former Republican Mesa County clerk and election conspiracy theorist, was convicted in 2024 in a plot to tamper with voting machines to try to prove the 2020 presidential election had been rigged against President Donald Trump. She has been cast by critics on the left as a dangerous figure seeking to undermine confidence in voting systems, while Trump and many supporters in the Make America Great Again movement have portrayed her as a martyr punished for trying to expose alleged election fraud, which has never been proven.
Polis’ commutation sparked national backlash and deep anger within his party, culminating in Colorado Democrats taking the rare, symbolic step of censuring the lame-duck governor and sidelining him from party events ahead of this week’s primary elections and the fall midterms.
While the governor told The Colorado Sun he had no regrets, saying the commutation “will be remembered fondly,” criticism from liberals and others has not waned. This week, a fresh wave of outrage erupted on social media after photos showed Peters visiting Trump in the Oval Office at the White House.
“She was put there because she found Election Fraud, but instead of arresting the people that committed the Fraud, they arrested her!” Trump said Tuesday in a Truth Social post featuring a picture of Peters standing beside him.
The fired clemency board members — Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi — had objected to Polis’ decision and wrote a Denver Post op-ed revealing that the clemency board unanimously rejected Peters’ requests for early parole or release twice, and explaining their rationale.
“Tina Peters was recommended for denial,” they wrote. “Our board voted no. Twice. Unanimously. The governor granted her clemency anyway. The problem is not about Tina Peters’ case in isolation. It is what his decision reveals. That the system bends for some and holds firm against everyone else.”
In letters sent Wednesday and shared with The Colorado Sun, Polis told Proff and Taslimi that their appointments to the board were terminated, effective immediately, because they breached the confidentiality required under an executive order. The order states that all board proceedings and records, including clemency applications and related materials, “shall be confidential and shall be available solely to the Governor and the Governor’s staff.”
“Members of the Executive Clemency Advisory Board are entrusted with access to highly confidential information throughout the clemency process,” Polis wrote in nearly identical letters to both women. “Maintaining the integrity of the clemency review process and preserving the confidentiality of Board deliberations are essential to the Board’s mission and the trust placed in its members. As a result, your continued service on the Board is inconsistent with the requirements of the Executive Order.”
Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, defended the firings, saying board members agree to “keep all clemency applications, board discussions, and recommendations confidential.”
He said Proff and Taslimi’s decision to publicly discuss the board’s recommendations “threatens the credibility of the board, colors future deliberations by the board, and breaks clearly stated confidentiality policy.”
Proff and Taslimi, former public defenders now practicing law in Denver, said they believed the public had a right to know how the board handled one of the most consequential clemency cases to come before Polis.
“He’s saying the public doesn’t have the right to know his own advisory board told him no — twice,” Taslimi told The New York Times. “He’s not protecting a process. He’s protecting himself from scrutiny.”
On the same day the letters were sent, Polis’ office released a list of appointments to state commissions and boards that included two new members of the clemency board, filling vacancies created by the dismissals.
Katie Hecker of Wheat Ridge was appointed as a representative of juvenile justice and child welfare, and Jenn Kilpatrick of Lakewood was appointed as an at-large member. Both terms expire in October 2027.
Colorado Sun staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.