‘60 Minutes’ Legend Grills Freed Trump 2020 Election Nut
The former county clerk was released from Colorado state prison in June.
60 Minutes star correspondent Bill Whitaker put prominent MAGA election denier Tina Peters in the hot seat months after her release from prison.
During Sunday’s episode, Whitaker, 75, pressed Peters, 71, about her criminal conviction for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The former Mesa County, Colorado clerk was convicted in state court in August 2024 on seven counts, including four felonies, for engaging in a security breach to advance a false conspiracy theory of election fraud.
Tina Peters.
60 Minutes
President Donald Trump symbolically pardoned Peters, a former Colorado election official, for her state crimes related to election tampering in December.
However, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted her nine-year prison sentence in May following pressure from the Trump administration, which included the 80-year-old president calling him a “weak and pathetic man.”
Sign Up for The Swamp Newsletter
By clicking “SUBSCRIBE” you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
“Look, she should’ve gotten a year, two years, three years,” Polis told 60 Minutes. “When she got close to nine years, I was shocked.”
Polis caved to the Trump administration's pressure to release Peters from prison.
Mike Segar/REUTERS
Peters didn’t appear to show any remorse for her actions during her 60 Minutes appearance.
“The bottom line is, can people trust these machines? Can they really trust these machines? My answer is no,” she said in the interview, which was recorded in August.
Whitaker, who’s been at 60 Minutes for over a decade, asked Peters to show evidence that the paper ballots didn’t match the computerized results, but she couldn’t give a straight answer.
Peters didn't take too kindly to Whitaker's line of questioning.
60 Minutes
“Well, my place is not to show, um, you know, pick out different things and what could have happened,” she said. “Mine was, I was authorized to, uh, protect the election records according to 52USC.70201, which is a federal mandate to preserve election records.”
“More than 60 lawsuits were filed alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election, and they were either dismissed or withdrawn,” Whitaker explained. “There were multiple investigations by federal, state, local investigators—many of them Republican. None of them found evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election. Is it possible that you were wrong?”
Peters replied, “You know, I’m not going to debate about what’s happening- across the country in that regard. All I know is that I was the election official in charge of preserving election records. And those election records were wiped from the system.”
But the wiping Peters referred to was actually a routine system update across Colorado, and all of the voting records were preserved, according to Colorado County Clerks Association director Matt Crane.
“Every record that was required under federal and state law for retention, her staff had already backed up,” Crane, a Republican, told 60 Minutes.
Whitaker then went for the jugular, pressing Peters directly on her crimes—which she did not take lightly.
“You took an oath to do this job. Why turn off the security cameras?” he asked, referencing how Peters ordered security cameras to be turned off at the time before exposing voting data from her county.
Crane, a Republican, also said that Polis' decision to commute Peters' sentence amounted to "a complete betrayal of the election community."
60 Minutes
“It was not against the law,” Peters claimed.
“You gave an outsider fake credentials...” Whitaker said before Peters cut him off.
“Okay. Oh, we’re getting into it now,” she said.
He then asked her directly if she broke the law.
“Did I—are you asking me if I broke the law?” Peters said. “They said I broke the law.”
Whitaker then brought up that a Republican district attorney prosecuted her in a Republican county, and Peters repeatedly interrupted, “Doesn’t matter.”
Peters was charged with obstruction for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the voting breach. She was later indicted on 10 criminal counts.
Kevin Mohatt/REUTERS
“I do believe these machines can be breached,” she said, maintaining that her prosecution was unjust.
Asked whether she plans on running for office, Peters gave a cryptic answer.
“I’m a woman of faith,” she said. “I believe that what God brings you to, he’ll see you through. And I’m willing to do whatever needs to be done to save this country.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Whitaker’s segment follows last week’s story from Lesley Stahl about Trump’s election meddling efforts.
The veteran reporter dove into the FBI’s raid of election offices in Georgia and the president’s frequent, false claims of widespread voter fraud following an alleged dust-up with her Trumpy boss, Bari Weiss.
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Monthly
$1
First month then $5.99/month
Annual
$35
First year then $59.99/year
Premium
$79
First year then $119.99/year
*Substack access provided by the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement to Substack’s Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Sign In
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You're all set!
Thanks for subscribing.
Sign in or create an account
Login dialog
Loading comments…