denier

Dec. 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he granted “a full Pardon” to election denier Tina Peters who was convicted for helping outsiders illegally breach voting machine security, though Colorado officials say he has no power to do so for state crimes.

Peters, a 70-year-old former Mesa County, Colo., clerk, is serving a nine-year prison sentence. She was convicted in August 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant and criminal impersonation for aiding an unauthorized person in copying voting-machine hard-drive data during a 2021 software update.

That data, including sensitive election-system information, was later leaked online by election-fraud conspiracy theorists who claimed it proved Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

While maintaining the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump has been a vocal supporter of the effort to secure Peters’ release, describing Peters as a pro-democracy activist.

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” Trump said Thursday evening in a post to his Truth Social account.

“Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

Colorado state officials have been adamant amid Trump’s demands for Peters’ release that he does not have the authority to pardon her, as she was convicted on state charges.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Thursday in response to Trump’s announcement.

“No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions,” Polis continued. “This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”

Trump has feuded with Polis, a Democrat, over Peters’ incarceration, calling the governor a “SLEAZEBAG” earlier this month on Truth Social for refusing “to allow an elderly woman, Tina Peters, who was unfairly convicted of what the Democrats do, cheating on Elections, out of jail!”

Trump’s declaration of Peters’ pardon came hours after her lawyer, Peter Ticktin, announced he had formally asked Trump to pardon his client, whom he called “a necessary witness in exposing election misconduct.”

“Tina Peters is rightfully in Colorado state prison,” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said in a statement on X on Thursday.

“Trump’s corrupt and political attempts at a pardon won’t work here. Once again, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has used his powers to issue pardons to many of those connected to the effort to overturn the 2020 election who were convicted on federal charges, including the more than 1,500 people who stormed Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

Dec. 10 (UPI) — Gregg Phillips has been selected for a leadership position in the Federal Emergency Management Administration, though he hasn’t managed emergencies at the state or federal level and has been critical of the agency.

Philipps, 65, is best known for claiming millions of noncitizens voted in the 2016 election.

Phillips will lead the Office of Response and Recovery, which is FEMA’s largest division, as first reported by The Handbasket. The position doesn’t need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Karen Evan, FEMA’s newly appointed interim leader, also doesn’t have major management experience. She replaced David Richardson, who resigned as FEMA’s acting administrator on Nov. 17 after being appointed on May 8, and also didn’t have emergency experience.

Phillips will be “joining the FEMA leadership team, bringing experience in emergency and humanitarian response, state government operations, and large-scale program reform,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, wrote in an email to The Hill.

In a LinkedIn post last year, he wrote: “I have been a very vocal opponent of FEMA” and believes that the agency has failed people in need.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees FEMA, has said there is a need to “eliminate FEMA as it exists today.”

Since January, the number of active FEMA employees has decreased by approximately 2,500 from around 25,800.

The FEMA’ Fiscal Year 2025 budget is approximately $59.2 billion, which includes annual appropriations and supplemental funding for the Disaster Relief Fund. The initial budget request was $27.9 billion.

Phill will “support FEMA leadership as the agency advances reforms aligned with the direction set by President Trump and Secretary Noem, focused on clarifying federal responsibilities, strengthening coordination with states, and improving accountability in disaster operations,” the spoekspereson said.

The office recommends to FEMA’s administrator whether a disaster should be declared. They distribute manufactured housing after disasters, assist communities after disasters or terrorism, provide disaster response and ensure FEMA’s field operations are timely and effective.

A longtime, unnamed FEMA official told The Washington Post: “You want that person to have deep technical knowledge to say ‘This is why this should get declared [a disaster] and why this shouldn’t.’ So the administrator can look and say ‘yep, that makes total sense, let’s send this to the White House.’ ”

He led the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and was deputy Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Phillips’ work was

He was accused of ethical misconduct in funneling contracts to his private companies.

Elections denial

Phillips has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump.

After the 2016 election, Phillips claimed that mass voter fraud had denied Trump the popular votes against Hillary Clinton.

He said his Texas-based nonprofit, True the Vote, gathered data showing that 3 million “noncitizens.”

Trump later posted the information on Twtter, which is now X, writing: In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Phillips didn’t produce evidence about his claim and later disputed Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

In 2022, Phillips and True the Vote’s president were jailed because they defied a court order to turn over information backing their allegations that an election software company helped Biden win.

He was also featured in the discredited film 2000 Mules in 2022 about 2020 election fraud.