Former clerk, now out of prison, joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis fired two members of his clemency advisory board Wednesday for publicly speaking against his decision to free Tina Peters after she was convicted of election-related crimes, his office confirmed to The Denver Post.
Polis removed Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi from the advisory board because they “breached the required duty of confidentiality by publicly divulging board members’ votes,” according to letters from Polis reported Wednesday afternoon by the New York Times, which was first to break the news.
Following the 2020 election, Peters, then the Mesa County clerk and recorder, gave a person associated with election-denier Mike Lindell access to Mesa County’s voting system. She was found guilty of four felonies and sentenced in October 2024 to nine years in prison for the crimes.
Polis commuted her sentence in May, arguing that her sentence was “harsher” than people who were also convicted of attempting to influence a public official had received in other circumstances. He also argued that she was being punished for her speech.
He faced swift, pointed criticism from a slew of other Democrats, along with an official censure by the state party. Peters was released June 1.
In mid-June, Seigel Proff and Taslimi, two attorneys on the clemency advisory board, spoke to the media and wrote an opinion piece for The Post questioning Polis’ decision. They wrote that the board unanimously voted twice to recommend denial of clemency for Peters. While Polis ignored the board and freed Peters early, they wrote, he also had a history of ignoring their recommendations to grant clemency to other applicants.
“The problem is not about Tina Peters’ case in isolation,” Siegel Proff and Taslimi wrote. “It is what his decision reveals. That the system bends for some and holds firm against everyone else.”
Not even close to implied.