Tina Peters, the former Republican Colorado County Clerk who was jailed over a plot to breach her state’s voting system after the 2020 presidential election, met with President Trump at the White House on Monday according to ABC News, which cited unnamed “sources.” The claim was also made by Ed Martin, a Trump-aligned former Justice Department official, who told Eric Bolling on Real America’s Voice that Peters had been “in the Oval Office meeting with the president on election integrity” hours earlier on Monday. When contacted by Newsweek White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said: "We do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened." On her website Peters has published 'The Tina Plan,' proposals she said are needed to safeguard the 2026 midterm elections, which include promoting “hand-marked paper ballots” and preparing for audits and recounts. Speaking to conservative podcaster Joe Oltmann last week, Peter Ticktin, Peters' attorney, went further and said “her idea is grab, get control over the ballots as soon as the machines spit them through and then do a recount.” Ticktin also said that Trump “is not going to relinquish control again” if he believes the results are rigged adding: “It’s better if we’re going to have a civil war of any sort that it be martial law with our side in control of the armaments.” Newsweek contacted Peters and Ticktin for comment on Friday via email outside of regular office hours.
Peters was the Republican County Clerk for Mesa County, in Colorado, during the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden won Colorado with 55.4 percent of the vote, a 13.5 percent margin, and defeated Trump nationally with 51.3 percent of the vote against 46.8 percent. Trump insisted the 2020 election had been rigged against him, though these allegations were repeatedly rejected in court, and on January 6th 2021 his supporters stormed Congress in a failed bid to stop the election result being certified.
Peters published a report in March 2022 alleging the election was tampered with in Mesa County, though this was rejected by the local district attorney’s office. In August 2024 Peters was convicted on seven criminal counts, four felonies and three misdemeanors, relating to allegations she had allowed an unauthorized individual associated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to access and copy data from Mesa County’s election system in 2021 in a bid to prove fraud. Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison.
In April 2026 the Colorado Court of Appeal upheld Peters’ conviction but overturned the nine-year prison sentence, and in June she was released on parole after her sentence was commuted by Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis. Ed Martin, a Republican lawyer and former Justice Department official, said on Monday that Peters had been “in the Oval Office meeting with the president on election integrity” just hours earlier during an appearance on conservative-leaning network Real America’s Voice. Martin left the Justice Department in August with Trump saying he would “fight legal battles” around the midterm elections on his Truth Social website.
In 2020, Martin backed the Trump endorsed ‘Stop The Steal’ campaign, which argued the presidential election of that year had been rigged. On Tuesday ABC News also reported Trump had met Peters in the White House to discuss election integrity the previous day, citing undisclosed sources. However, this hasn’t been confirmed by the White House with a spokesperson telling Newsweek “we do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened.” On her website Peters has published “The Tina Plan” and has called on Trump to “implement immediate Federal Risk Mitigation to protect our elections and our National Security.” The document outlines steps to “support hand-marked paper ballots,” “protect voting systems and poll books,” “preserve chain of custody” and “conduct audits and recounts where necessary.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are urged to “issue the public national risk declaration”, saying there is a threat to the elections and launch a 70-day campaign to safeguard the polls. Specifically Peters said that where possible there should be “a complete independent hand count of the federal contests on the physical ballots” with ballots being counted by hand then compared to the machine totals. Appearing on a conservative podcast hosted by Joe Oltmann, Ticktin (Peters’ attorney) described his client's proposals as “a good plan” adding “I do think something like that is probably going to happen.” Ticktin also said “Trump is not going to relinquish control again” if “everything goes wrong” and “the senatorial races put it up there to remove the president and the vice president.” In these circumstances, referring to the president, Ticktin said: “So, he's got nothing to lose, the nation has nothing to lose, it's better if we're going to have a civil war of any sort that it would be martial law with our side in control of the armaments.” Trump survived two impeachment attempts during his first term over allegations he abused his power by withholding military aid to Ukraine unless the country investigated Biden and incited insurrection following the January 6th 2021 attack on Congress.
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