She’s Charged in a Wild Voting Scam. Now She Wants to Run Colorado’s Elections.

This content comes from the latest installment of our weekly Breaking the Vote newsletter out of VICE News’ D.C. bureau, tracking the ongoing efforts to undermine the democratic process in America. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

In Trumpism’s up-is-down Bizarro World, committing fraud to undermine election security makes you the ideal candidate to run your state’s election security. By that logic, it makes perfect sense that Colorado GOP secretary of state candidate Tina Peters was charged with multiple felonies this week, for a wacky security breach that sent her into hiding—and ended with voting machine data getting posted online last summer.  

According to prosecutors, it all started back in April 2021 when the Mesa County Clerk, already a Big Lie devotee, started insisting that an upcoming software update for voting machines be made open to the public. Officials told Peters that wasn’t allowed. 

Then in May, prosecutors say, things got crimey. Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisley, concocted a scheme to fake a man’s identity so he could gain access to a secure room where voting machines would be updated. Prosecutors say Peters and Knisley first hired an IT professional named Gerald “Jerry” Wood to do voting machine work as a temp, but that the hire was just a ruse to gain Wood’s personal information and Social Security number.

Prosecutors say Peters and Knisley then used real Jerry’s info to clear a background check and fake an employee ID card and email address for another, unknown man. Peters even told another employee that Fake Jerry was a DMV employee who was moving over to the Elections division. With that ID, fake Jerry allegedly gained access to the employees-only voting machine update session. 

Meanwhile, real Jerry told the grand jury that he never went to the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office in Grand Junction, Colorado, on the dates when the voting machine update took place. He also said he never used the ID badge that Peters had made for him after she fake-hired him. 

That’s not all. A week before the software update, prosecutors say Knisley set about deactivating the security cameras in the room where the voting machines were stored. In August, Knisley said in an interview that she turned off the cameras under Peters’ orders.   

By August, passwords and other voting machine info were posted online by suspected QAnon sympathizers. Once the FBI started investigating, Peters briefly went into hiding with the help of MyPillow founder and election-conspiracy obsessive Mike Lindell, who told VICE News that Peters feared for her life. Knisley was also charged with several misdemeanors this week.

Prosecutors say Peters’ and Knisley’s caper made it so that officials couldn’t establish the integrity of the breached voting machines that fake Jerry had messed with. That’s what eventually led to a judge barring Peters from administering the election in November.

You almost have to marvel at the chef’s-kiss elegance with which this story of lying, self-fulfilling conspiracy, and alleged criminality exemplifies Trumpism’s election scam: First you parrot Trump’s lies about 2020, amplify the (largely nonexistent) problem, then rush to the rescue of the crisis you’ve created, by any hypocritical or possibly illegal means necessary. The fact that Peters allegedly faked an employee’s ID so he could steal election info is just icing on the cake for a MAGA movement that claims to be obsessed with voters’ true identities.

Peters has parlayed arrests, stolen-election theories, and her ban against supervising elections into a bid to run all Colorado voting as secretary of state, which she announced several weeks ago on fellow felony suspect Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. 

And she’s just one of several Trumpist acolytes trying to take control of elections in critical states. 

By the way, who IS the fake Jerry who allegedly used a fraudulent identity to breach voting machine data that was later posted online? Much more on that to come.

Want some more of that sweet, Tina-like irony? As Donald Trump warns us, fraud is threatening the sanctity of our elections. Especially when it maybe comes from his chief of staff and coup-attempt linchpin Mark Meadows. Check out this trailer in the woods, then read the rest of the story. Love that it’s on McConnell Road, btw. Classic. 

It’s the “But his emails!” edition of This Week in Subpoenas! Remember how coup creative John Eastman tried to blanket-shield his emails from the January 6 committee on grounds of attorney-client privilege? A federal judge in California says, “nuh-uh.” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled Wednesday that Eastman’s emails from Jan. 4-7, 2021, are fair game, but that the court will review each of the 111 in question to determine if privilege protections apply. 

These were the emails that caused a freakout news cycle last week when the committee told the judge it had reason to believe Trump and Eastman were involved in a criminal conspiracy on Jan. 6. Attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply if a crime or fraud is underway. Judge Carter didn’t comment on that assertion directly. But now there’s new evidence that Eastman–wait for it–knew his advice to Veep Mike Pence on stopping the Jan. 6 certification violated the law. He said so, and that kind of admission is what criminal conspiracies are all about.

— Former Trump adviser and ray of sunshine Stephen Miller is suing the committee, hoping to keep his phone records out of its hands. Everyone had fun with the fact that Miller, a 36-year-old husband and dad, is still on his parents’ phone plan. 

— The Republican National Committee is suing to block a subpoena of one of its major fundraising vendors, claiming January 6 investigators are trying to intimidate GOP donors. Investigators subpoenaed Salesforce last month, for possible evidence of false election information driving fundraising and calls for Trump to retain power. Salesforce informed the RNC, and the RNC says the subpoena violates donors’ constitutional rights and will be used to harass them. 

This is a good time to recall that last year, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy issued an open threat to companies that don’t aid in a cover-up of Jan. 6, should Republicans take power next year. “If companies still choose to violate federal law (by complying with committee subpoenas), a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law," he said. 

— Another batch of Trump White House documents are headed to the January 6 committee, and this time there’s no lawsuit from Trump trying to block them. Some of the docs seem to deal with Pence’s role in certifying election results. 

It took a federal jury just two hours to convict Capitol rioter Guy Reffitt of all five counts he was charged with, including weapons offenses and obstruction of an official proceeding. Reffitt’s case gained national attention not only because it was first to go to a jury but also  because his teenage son, Jackson, tipped off the FBI to his father’s role in the insurrection and then testified against him (read David Gilbert’s great VICE News coverage). Reffitt is due to be sentenced in June, but he’s also set to appeal (see below).

Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio got arrested and charged with seven counts in connection with Jan. 6 this week, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Tarrio wasn’t in D.C. on the 6th, but he allegedly met with Oath Keepers and discussed the insurrection in the days before. He also got internet giggles for getting zip-tied in his undies when federal agents came to his place in Miami.

Reffitt, Tarrio, and many, many other Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. In fact, that’s the charge holding together the Justice Department’s prosecution of dozens of defendants, and it could be the key to prosecuting members of the broader coup plot who didn’t riot. (It’s even one of the charges the January 6 committee referenced last week when it told a judge it suspects Trump led a criminal conspiracy.)

But a federal judge may have complicated those plans. This week, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols became the first judge to toss out the conspiracy to obstruct charges against accused rioter Garrett Miller, saying the law governing the charge refers only to physically obstructing proceedings, not intimidating the people participating in them. 

Many other judges have allowed the charge. The government will appeal, but if Nichols’ interpretation prevails, it could allow dozens of Jan. 6 defendants to appeal their convictions, at least in part. 

By the way, look who’s funding the legal defense of at least one, and probably several, Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy. Why, it’s sanctioned “Kraken” lawyer and coup plotter Sidney Powell. 

Wisconsin voters are in for years of Big Lie BS, whether they want it or not. That’s the fear of election experts after the former state Supreme Court justice hired to investigate the 2020 election vowed to keep investigating this week. 

Former conservative Justice Michael Gableman released a 136-page report on the 2020 election rife with what experts say are inaccuracies and innuendo. Donald Trump loved it, declaring it “one of the biggest stories of our generation.” Now Republicans, under pressure from Trump, have re-upped Gableman’s contract for another two months. 

“It keeps the issues at the top of the agenda going into the campaign season,” Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told me. Burden said Wisconsin is consumed with stolen election news, noting that reports, lawsuits, and threats of criminal charges occupy the top of the state news most days of the week, even as Wisconsin heads into the midterm election season. “It’s not the status of the state budget, or COVID or education. That stuff is all taking a back seat,” he said.

Claire Woodall-Vogg, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, told me she spends up to 20 percent of her time defending against lawsuits and debunking election disinformation, and she doesn’t expect it to improve. “I think that’s the entire intent of it," she said of efforts to disrupt election administrators and voters’ beliefs about what they do.

How the GOP-driven stolen election hysteria ultimately affects Wisconsin overwhelmingly depends on the outcome of the 2022 governor’s race, Burden said. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed the election changes the GOP-controlled Legislature has sent him. One GOP primary candidate is a full-blown stolen election conspiracist, while the “mainstream” front-unner, Rebeca Kleefisch, now won’t say who won the 2020 election.  

 "It’s like we’re in a hamster wheel that we can’t get off of." - Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, on the cycle of election disinformation plaguing Wisconsin.

Militant Extremists — The federal trial of four militia members who allegedly plotted to kidnap and torture Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is underway in Grand Rapids. The “Wolverine Watchmen” are accused of planning to snatch Whitmer and hog-tie her as punishment for her COVID mitigation policies in 2020, all while discussing bombs, guns, and ways to murder her. Federal agents infiltrated the group and arrested six of them, foiling the alleged plot. Two “Watchmen” have already pleaded guilty and are expected to testify against the others. The trial is expected to last at least a month. 

The case stands out as yet another example of the rise of right-wing political violence, and as a case in point of how that violence disproportionately targets women in politics. 

A Mess in Texas — There’s no doubt that a mixture of new voter suppression laws and incompetence made a disaster out of the recent primaries in Texas. Statewide, more than 27,000 mail-in ballots were flagged for rejection, an astronomical rate of 17 percent that disenfranchised Democrats and Republicans alike. Meanwhile, Harris County, home of Houston, had a meltdown: Voting machines were used improperly, election workers made errors, and 10,000 votes were left uncounted until someone realized the goof. Isabel Longoria, the Harris County elections chief, resigned this week, saying she’d lost the faith of voters.

Anatomy of a Conspiracy — VICE News Tonight’s Alexis Johnson and Madeleine May uncovered some bonkers stuff while reporting in Fulton County, Georgia. They went to find out how election workers were fielding threats and wound up discovering the true origins of an echo-chambered, Tucker Carlson-level right-wing conspiracy theory. That’s not before they also found out that “Stop the Steal” lawyers use moonlighting cops as their investigators. 

SVU: Special Voting Unit — In the American electoral system, some politicians gin up fantasies of election fraud for political gain. These are their stories. Florida Republicans are on the verge of getting their new election crimes office, just in time for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 re-election bid. The state Senate passed a new set of GOP election changes, including the new 25-employee office, and sent it to the House. It’ll have a mandate to root out fraud that DeSantis himself said doesn’t really exist.

Sons of Anarchy: How an FBI informant stopped the plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. AIRMAIL

How to keep the rising tide of fake news from drowning out democracy. THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Aftermath: America’s struggle with democracy and accountability after Jan. 6. LAWFARE