Category: Embarrassing Republicans

Grand Jury indicts Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on felony charges; warrants issued for arrest of both Peters and Belinda Knisely without bond

WANTED: An arrest warrant has been issued for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters after a grand jury indicted her this morning on a mix of 13 felonies and misdemeanors.

The grand jury indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters this morning (pdf) on 13 counts related to her official misconduct and tampering with election equipment. The charges include a mix of felonies and misdemeanors.

Peters is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant (a Class 4 felony), one count of attempting to influence a public servant (a Class 5 felony), one count of criminal impersonation (a Class 6 felony), one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation (a Class 6 felony); one count of identify theft (a Class 4 felony) and one count of first-degree official misconduct, a Class 2 misdemeanor. Peters is also charged with one count each of violation of duty and failure to comply with the Secretary of State, both unclassified misdemeanor offenses.

The grand jury also indicted Deputy Mesa County Clerk Belinda Knisely on violation of duty, failure to comply with the Secretary of State, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and multiple counts of attempting to influence a public servant.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters tells crowd some people “shouldn’t be voting”

In this exchange during her speaking engagement at the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club on February 21, a woman in the audience asks election conspiracy-theorist Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters how to get “voters with inappropriate names off the voter list”:

Woman to Tina: “Is there anything we can do at this point, at this election, I mean to get these voters with inappropriate names off the voter list?”

Tina: “Yes, there’s some issues on HAVA [the Help America Vote Act] (pdf). They stand behind HAVA a lot. That is the national voting act where they are bringing in all these drop boxes and making elections “more accessible” to everybody. [Tina gestures using air quotes when she says “more accessible”]. Well, they’re really not. They’re making them more accessible to the ones that shouldn’t be voting.”

Tina Peters is running to replace Jenna Griswold as Colorado Secretary of State.

Tina Peters claims she was “framed” with the ballots left in the ballot box from the 2019 election


Speaking to members of the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club on February 21, 2022 (video), Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters claimed that she was “framed” when election workers found “429 ballots” uncollected in a ballot box from the 2019 election.

The ballots were discovered when election workers went to empty the box for the 2020 election, but Peters refused to petition a judge to open and count them and include them in the final vote tally from the 2019 election. In her talk, Peters also got the number of uncounted ballots wrong. 574 ballots were discovered left in the ballot box, not 429.

Peters claimed without evidence that “they stuffed the ballot box with 479 ballots” in order to “take over my office” and said it was part of an effort to “take over the western slope.”

Rep. Boebert embarrasses western Colorado again with shocking outburst at State of the Union


Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert once again roundly embarrassed her western Colorado constituents nationally with her continuing over-the-top bad behavior, this time by shouting at President Biden during his first State of the Union speech on March 1 as he began to talk about his deceased son, Beau, who died at age 46 from brain cancer in 2015. Biden raised the issue of members of the military who, like his son, had “ended up in flag-draped coffins” after being exposed to toxic burn pits in the military. As Biden mentioned the soldiers who had died, Boebert yelled out “You put them there. Thirteen of them!” apparently referencing the explosion carried out by an Isis bomber at the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan last August that killed 13 American service members.

It’s time to admit something’s wrong with Tina

Embattled election conspiracy theorist Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters grins proudly for her mug shot taken upon her arrest on 2/10/2022

Lots of people have been saying it under their breath, but no one has come out and said it publicly. Mostly people have just gotten angry at Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters for her increasingly strange behavior, but maybe it’s time to start pitying Tina.

We can all agree that Tina’s behavior has been very far outside what is considered normal for an elected county clerk:

Normal clerks don’t compromise their own election equipment. They don’t flee the state on private jets, spend weeks hiding in safe houses in secret locations around the country or accept largesse from multi-millionaires to promote wacky election conspiracy theories. Normal clerks don’t blow off their obligation as clerks (pdf) to get certified to run elections as the state requires. Normal clerks don’t proclaim that the candidates who won an election shouldn’t have won because they were the wrong people to win. Normal county clerks don’t get their homes raided by the FBI.

Tina Peters: “There’s NO WAY that these people won in our town,” and few on the right actually care enough about her “bombshell forensic report” to read it


On February 11, 2022, the same day she was officially arrested and booked on charges of obstruction, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters appeared as a speaker at an “Emergency Town Hall” event held by the right wing extremist group Faith, Education, Commerce United in Castle Rock, Colorado.

During the Q &A, a member of the audience asks Peters:

“I’d like to hear from Tina. Would you bring us up to speed on all this? I read in the paper … I don’t get it, I mean I sort of get it, but the whole thing .. They walk into a restaurant, they arrest you and then they let you go. I don’t get it. Could you give us a nice little synopsis here? What started this in the first place?”

Tina responds by saying in part,

“So I did not go out on a fishing expedition, I did not go out to, you know, find something to prove that Trump won. It was very obvious, I think, to everybody. But when I saw the City Council election, I said ‘there’s no way, there is NO WAY that these people won in our town.'”

Matt Crane, the Executive Director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, who is a Republican, responded to this statement by Tina Peters by saying:

Tina Peters now says she is running for Secretary of State, but there’s no evidence of it so far

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters grins for her mug shot at the time of her arrest in Grand Junction on 2/10/2022

Update: Tina Peters finally filed a candidate affidavit saying she is running for Secretary of State on 2/23/22.

Adding a whole new level of crazy to her repertoire, after getting arrested last week on charges of obstruction, and then telling an adoring election conspiracy-theory endorsing crowd in Castle Rock immediately afterward that no one can stop her, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters announced this morning that she is running for Secretary of State (SOS), and will challenge incumbent SOS Jena Griswold for the seat.

No proof of candidacy for SOS so far

The only problem is Peters declared on the steps of the Mesa County Justice Center on January 13 that she was running for re-election as Mesa County Clerk. She can’t run for both offices at once, and so far the only candidate affidavit on file with the Secretary of State’s office is the one that says she is running for County Clerk. There is no affidavit on Tracer showing she is actually running for Secretary of State. A call to the Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Office (CFO), where candidates must submit their affidavits to officially be considered running for any office, revealed that so far no affidavit for Peters’ run for SOS exists either on their website or in the pending queue of the CFO, and Peters hasn’t taken any action to nullify her affidavit to run for clerk.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters unrepentant, tells crowd “They cannot stop me”

Tina Peters speaks to a far right wing crowd on the same day she was charged with crimes by the Mesa County Sheriff's Office.

On the same day the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office booked County Clerk Tina Peters on charges of obstructing a police officer and obstructing government operations, she was a guest speaker at an “Emergency Town Hall” held by the far right wing group “Faith, Education and Commerce United “(FEC United) in Castle Rock, Colorado where she got a standing ovation with rousing applause.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters turns herself in, pays own $500 bond

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ mug shot, 2/10/2022

Over-the-top, rogue Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters turned herself in to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office this morning on a misdemeanor arrest warrant around 10:30 a.m., paid her own bond of $500 and was soon released, according to news reports.

This arrest was for obstructing a peace officer as she refused to turn over an IPad pursuant to a warrant for the item issued by the DA’s office yesterday. Peters was believed to have illegally used the IPad to record a court proceeding for her former Chief Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley, who is facing charges of cybercrime and 2nd degree felony burglary.

You can read the warrant for Tina Peters’ arrest here.

Video of Tina Peters getting cuffed and resisting officers at Main Street Bagels

The above is a 2 minute video of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters getting cuffed and detained this morning around 10:45 a.m. by law enforcement officers in the front room at Main Street Bagels. The video was posted on the website of 9News in Denver.

The video shows Peters kicking at an officer, struggling to get away, yelling “That hurts! Let go of me! Give me my car keys!” The officers cuff her and take her outside onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Peters was detained for resisting a search warrant for her IPad, which she allegedly used to record a court hearing she attended for her former Chief Deputy Belinda Knisely earlier that morning, despite the judge having admonished people inside the courtroom not to record the proceedings.

Tina Peters handcuffed by law enforcement at Main Street Bagels for failure to turn over IPad pursuant to warrant

Tina Peters

Word is that rogue Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was handcuffed this morning at Main Street Bagels, around 11:00 a.m. in the front area of the restaurant. Peters was wearing a red jacket, was surrounded by law enforcement officials in county uniforms, including one woman, and some plain-clothes cops. Peters was cuffed with her hands behind her back in the front portion of the restaurant. More soon.

Update, 1:08 p.m., 2/8/22 – There’s information on Twitter from Jesse A. Paul of the Colorado Sun, formerly of the Denver Post, that Tina was “briefly detained and released,” that her detainment did not have to do directly with the breach of an election system, and that authorities are going to release additional information soon.

On internet TV show, Steve Bannon pledges less than a cent and a half to Tina Peters’ legal defense fund

Tina on Steve Bannon’s internet TV show “War Room” on Dec. 31, 2021

On December 31, 2021, Steve Bannon lionized Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on his internet TV show “Bannon’s War Room,” in an interview titled “The Deplorables-Gold Star Mom Tina Peters Who Sounded The Alarm On Election Fraud.”

Bannon let Peters spew the usual string of rants we’re all familiar with by now: how terribly she’s been harassed, how “they’re attacking regular Americans,” how they “fired her elections manager with no due process, nothing” and how they so horribly removed her chief deputy in August on “trumped-up charges.”

A minute and a half into the 7-minute interview, Bannon starts trying to play Tina off with increasingly loud bagpipe music, he lets her mechanically drone one for another minute or so. Tina continues… “They booked my chief deputy on a class 4 felony just for coming to work” and “they had a battering ram in the driveway” that she now admits “they didn’t use.”

Bannon cuts her off roughly 30 seconds later to go for a break.

New lawsuit poses even more trouble for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters

A new lawsuit (pdf) filed December 23, 2021 against Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters by her former husband, Thomas M. Peters, involving a dispute over property ownership could pose even more trouble for the embattled clerk at a time when a grand jury is set to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against her for tampering with election equipment.

“Theft by Deception” and “Breach of Fiduciary Duty”

Allegations against Tina Peters in the case include “conversion” (defined as “unauthorized possession of personal property causing curtailment of the owner’s possession,” in this case residential property), “breach of fiduciary duty” and “theft by deception.”

Documents about the lawsuit were sent anonymously and are of public interest.

The case number is 2021CV30321, and the judge in the case is 21st Judicial District Court Judge Gretchen B. Larson. The next hearing is a review set for February 22, 2022 in Room 12 of the Mesa County Justice Center.

Former KKCO weatherman Butch McCain now shilling for anti-vaxxers

Former KKCO Channel 11 weatherman Butch McCain, who was fired last October for refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19, stands in front of a fake weather map in a video promoting the anti-vax group Stop The Mandate GJ

Former longtime KKCO weatherman Butch McCain, who was fired from KKCO last October after refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccine in compliance with his employer Gray TV’s Covid-19 vaccine policy, is now promoting the anti-vax group Stop the Mandate GJ, which is encouraging others in our area to also refuse the vaccine.

McCain now appears on the first page of StoptheMandateGJ’s website, talking in front of a fake weather map and saying in part,

“It’s not about Covid any more, it’s about forced compliance…Let’s be the resistance to their nationwide tyranny…

 

“Mesa County Concerned Citizen” fraudulently promotes $182 ripoff box of common OTC items as an “early and effective treatment of COVID-19”

Screen-shot from a January 6, 2022 email sent out by Mesa County Concerned Citizen in which the group links to this box of every day drug store items selling online that claims to be an “early and effective treatment for Covid-19.”  The box sells for $160.00 plus $20 shipping and $12.37 tax, for a total of $182.36 — all for about $60 worth of over-the-counter items.

In its January 3, 2022 email blast, the local extreme right wing group “Mesa County Concerned Citizen” included a plug for “The Defense Box,” an item selling online that contains about $60 worth of common over-the counter items like Pepcid, Listerine, Vitamin C and baby aspirin, that costs $182.36, including shipping and tax.

The group says the items are an “early and effective treatment option” for Covid-19.

None of the items in the box are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment, prevention, mitigation or cure of Covid-19.

Cindy Ficklin ends her run for HD-55

————————————————————————–Local realtor and right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin posted on her Facebook page Sunday, 12/26/21, that she was withdrawing from the race for the House District 55 seat. She filed to run on 10/18/21. Her candidacy lasted only about two months.

Ficklin

Far right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin announced on Sunday, 12/26, that she has withdrawn her candidacy for the Colorado House District 55 seat.

Ficklin made the announcement in one of her usual extended, emoji-laden posts sprinkled with misspellings. She expressed shock that she had been called anti-semitic during her campaign, especially by her Republican Jewish friends, and admitted she had been ignorant about long-time anti-semitic tropes like saying Jews controlled all the banks the world. She expressed disappointment that people called her “gun-toting” when she only owns only “a couple baby Glocks.”

Ficklin lamented that the media had referred to her as a “conspiracy theorist,” saying

“I call it being the f*cking resistance, assholes.”

Local chiropractor Greg Haitz is behind “Stop the Mandate GJ,” hawks unproven supplements for Covid-19

Stop the Mandate GJ’s street address matches that of Greg Haitz’s business, Rimrock Wellness Center

Greg Haitz, owner of Rimrock Wellness Center

Rimrock Wellness Center, a chiropractic office at 12th and Patterson that also sells fat-loss treatments and supplements, has the same street address as “Stop the Mandate GJ,” the group agitating to stop hospitals, nursing homes and doctors’ offices from requiring health workers be vaccinated against Covid-19, the highly communicable, often deadly disease causing the pandemic. At the same time it is encouraging people to remain unvaccinated, Rimrock Wellness Center is also trying to profit off unvaccinated people’s fear of getting Covid-19, as well as their misperceptions of the relative safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.

Haitz fraudulently promotes his own brand of supplement as protective against Covid-19

HD-55 candidate Cindy Ficklin (R) now blames taxpayers and a Daily Sentinel reporter for her getting Covid, and is taking unproven treatments for the disease

Ficklin says she “went underground” to get Ivermectin to treat her Covid-19 infection, and displays the bottle in a Facebook post. There is no evidence Ivermectin cures Covid-19, and the FDA urges people not to use it.

Republican House District 55 candidate Cindy Ficklin is using non-medically approved treatments for Covid-19, including the animal de-worming medication Ivermectin. She also says she is inhaling “silver and Glutathione” with a nebulizer to “prevent conjestion [sic] from hardening in my lungs.”