Mesa County, Colorado county clerk Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison a few days ago, on October 3rd, 2024. Her crime, according to sentencing judge Matthew Barrett, involved giving unauthorized access to election equipment.
The judge said, “You're a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that's been proven to be junk time and time again.”
The “snake oil” the judge referenced are claims that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden and other politicians. His basis for characterizing those claims that way is that they are false, having been “proven” to be “junk.” It is a circular argument with little valid support.
The judge, in short, is wrong. It is claims such as his that have been proven junk “time and time again,” not Peters’. Ironically, Peters’ actions added to the body of evidence that supports claims of election fraud, not the reverse.
A closer examination reveals that someone with authorized access shared their code to backup data slated for irretrievable deletion. Peters wanted to back it up because deleting the records was a violation of the law. As she saw it, the data constituted “election records” and thus had to be retained for 22 months.
What Peters did was reasonable, consistent with the law, and doing otherwise would have violated the law. By finding Peters guilty, the judge was effectively saying that she broke the law by not breaking the law. Or, that she should have broken the law to avoid breaking the law. It is nonsense, and the judge’s ruling would be foolish if not for the maliciousness with which it was pursued and delivered.
The gulty verdict in this case, like many other recent verdicts, such as in the Derek Chauvin/George Floyd case, or the many cases against Donald Trump, tell me nothing about the defendants, but a lot about the people arrayed against them. They tell me that our justice system, prosecutors, attorneys general, and judges, as well as all of their cooperative subordinates, are committing crimes under color of authority.
The verdict in the Peters trial and the subsequent sentence tells me that the people involved in her prosecution, not Peters, are the guilty ones. Here is something from the Bible that is useful to remember in this context:
Nahum 1:3 - "The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet."
The way this is normally interpreted, a person commits a crime, becomes guilty, and then the Lord, in anger, metes out punishment. However, I see it differently. In my view, committing a crime instantly renders one guilty, corrupting the soul at that very moment. This corruption is itself a form of punishment - an immediate, spiritual consequence of the wrongdoing.
There may be some other punishment in addition to the self-inflicted harm caused by the crime, but the crime itself degrades the person instantly. As uncomfortable as a later punishment might be, such as what Israel is currently meting out against Hamas and Hezbollah, corruption of one’s soul is pretty bad also.
When I watched the judge's statements at Peters' sentencing, I contemplated how many spiritual transgressions - crimes against divine law, not merely human legal code - he committed in those minutes. I wondered about the moral failings that led to this verdict and sentencing, and those that positioned him to commit these acts we're witnessing today. In my mind's eye, each transgression appeared like a blistering blackhead on his face and soul, accumulating into a festering, ugly black mass of oozing evil.
The judge himself will be judged someday, but he has already ruined himself in a series of despicable acts that have stained his soul forever. May he repent, confess his sins, and sin no more. Only then may he be cleansed of the impurities he has imbibed and the stain he has left on American society.
He may not realize his shame yet, but as an American, I am ashamed of him, and all others like him, who use their authority to persecute the inocent and to protect the guilty. I can think of nothing more dishonorable than that, or vile, or worthy of rebuke and correction.
Well done. Clearly Tina was shafted. She got punished for doing her job. Ugly, sinful!
Andrew, what a beautiful way to highlight the judge's choice in self-incrimination, and in embracing evil. I hope Tina wins an appeal, and barring that, she wins a pardon from Pres. Trump, and evidence of evil exposed.