Your reaction to the apparent news that election grifter Tina Peters has been offered a new job — helping to oversee the November midterm elections in a conservative California county — may vary.
You could be disgusted, as I am. Confused. Shocked. Appalled. Outraged. Take your pick.
And you could be even angrier with Jared Polis than you were before for springing Peters from prison. Not to mention any new anger you’re feeling about Polis’ refusal, outlined in The Denver Post, to reveal conversations with Donald Trump about Peters’ reduced sentence.
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That’s even as Peters, in a recent podcast, praised White House counsel David Warrington for working “with the administration, Polis, for my release.” Now, we’re left to wonder again just how Polis’ commutation of Peters — despite the unanimous disapproval of the state Clemency Board — came about. Polis did not discuss any conversations — or if they happened at all — with Warrington.
That’s even as the “smoking gun” email from a Trump aide calling on cabinet officials to come up with ways to punish Colorado for refusing Trump’s demand to free Peters, whom he called a political prisoner, was revealed in a Colorado lawsuit against Trump.
On the other hand, you could just settle for being delighted that if she ends up taking the job, it would mean that Peters would be some other state’s problem, however briefly. She was offered the position by Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis, an election denier who has already been voted out of office and will be replaced in early January.
What you can’t be surprised by, though, is that the reported job offer in Shasta County — which recently voted to ban most mail-in voting, although a judge has put the results on hold — is already mired in controversy and may never come off.
Curtis first announced the possible hire on “Jefferson State of Mine,” a show hosted by leaders of the State of Jefferson secession movement, which seeks to have the northern part of California and the southern part of Oregon secede from their respective states.
“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in. She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows,” Curtis said. Yeah, rocks and arrows and 19 months of jail time.
“I thought I had a hard yes (from Peters),” Curtis told KCRW news a few days ago, “but then the day after, she was thinking about it again, so I don’t know. It’s not a sure thing; I’m giving it a 70/30.”
That may be a slightly optimistic assessment from someone who may not be an entirely reliable narrator.
It seems the job that Curtis wants to give Peters — as assistant clerk and registrar — is already filled by Brent Turner, who has been on sick leave for a serious illness. He says he has no intention of resigning and was totally blindsided by the news.
Which led Curtis, recently censured by the county Board of Supervisors over personnel issues, to possibly change Peters’ job description to consultant. But there’s no money in the budget for a consultant, and many question whether the supervisors or the county executive would even consider opening up the new position, especially given that it’s for Peters.
And there’s also the matter of parole and whether Peters would be granted permission by her parole officer to take a job in another state.
Meanwhile, every statewide elected official in California, as in Colorado, is a Democrat, and both senators and the governor, among others, have weighed in against Peters — with Gov. Gavin Newsom stating the obvious while taking a not-so-subtle shot at Polis, saying Peters should still be in prison.
One member of the nonpartisan Shasta County board of supervisors, Matt Plummer, told The New York Times that “It would continue to stoke controversy, divisiveness and increase distrust in our elections.” Plummer, a Republican, said his office had been overwhelmed with emails from his constituents objecting to Peters playing any part in their elections.
Of course they object. It would be nothing less than a humiliation for the county and the state.
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But they could also blame Polis, without whom none of this would be possible. Without Polis, as Newsom noted without naming him, Peters would still be in prison.
In direct questioning of Polis by Ryan Warner on Media Matters, the governor insisted that in releasing Peters, there was no quid pro quo with Trump, at least “from my perspective.”
“From my perspective,’ he said, “it made it harder to do the right thing … When he opens his mouth on something, it makes it harder, not easier. So it would’ve been a lot easier to do the right thing with Tina Peters had President Trump never mentioned her.”
On the show, Polis also lashed out at Colorado Democrats, who just happened to have censured him for freeing Peters, saying that “when members of a political party want someone in jail for their speech, that’s a very dangerous precedent. And obviously, and again, in this case, it was my own political party.”
Of course, that’s an absurd charge. The Court of Appeals may have ruled that District Court Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced Peters in part for her speech during the trial. But the court, in its wisdom, sent the case for resentencing back to the same judge.
I’m pretty sure Barrett didn’t want Peters to stay in prison for her speech, just as Democrats don’t want Peters in prison for her being an election denier. They wanted her in prison for endangering election security in Mesa County. They wanted her to stay in prison until the case had finished going through the courts. They wanted her to stay in prison just as the state Clemency Board unanimously recommended. Did the board object to freeing Peters from prison because they don’t believe in free speech?
Here’s my guess on Polis: No one is unhappier about Peters’ alleged job offer than Polis himself.
Once again, he looks bullheaded and foolish.
Once again, he shows he believes he’s the only proper arbiter of his own actions.
And most of all, he knows that every time Peters is back in the news — which will certainly be often — that his decision will come under fire again.
And again. And again.
Polis will finish his two terms as governor in January. But he’ll never be finished with Peters.
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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