In August, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that the state was conducting an investigation into a “serious breach” of election security. Specifically being investigated was Mesa County’s election equipment after images of passwords and software screens leaked online. The 41 pieces of equipment, which now have to be replaced, had been compromised under Republican Clerk Tina Peters.

One month later, Griswold announced some of the findings of the investigation, namely that Peters and her deputy Belinda Knisley were not simply neglectful in their duties but had actively worked to compromise the security of a set of machines. Peters was quickly banned by Griswold from participating in any upcoming elections. Peters has said that this is all deep state persecution. On Wednesday, Colorado District Court Judge Valerie J. Robison agreed that Peters and Knisley should be blocked from running the Mesa County elections this year.

In her decision, Robison wrote: 

Knisley had been suspended for futzing around with Peters’ computer after the investigation had begun, reportedly in concert with Peters—who was off galavanting at the cyber crimatorium emporium imaginorium MAGA Big Lie con event funded by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. 

According to Robison, former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams and former Mesa County Clerk Sheila Reiner will continue forward in Peters’ and Knisley’s roles for the upcoming November election. Talking Points Memo received a statement from Peters that she would be appealing the decision as she believes it is a “stunning abuse of power” on the part of Colorado’s secretary of state.

The details of what Peters and Knisley did are very clear, and are not being argued at this point. A scheduled “trusted build” of the Mesa County voting software was planned. Only vetted people are allowed to be around this equipment before and during the build as steps of security protocol. Peters broke this chain of security by lying and saying that rando-guy Gerald Wood was an “administrative assistant” to Peters. Without any background check, they then let Wood into the area with the secured equipment before the “trusted build” and allowed him to copy information on it.

Wood was then allowed in again, after the build, and allowed once again to copy the software onto a hard drive. Wood was also given access to passwords. Clearly, none of this was secure as passwords and images appeared on a public website touting Big Lie conspiracy nonsense. Important fact to remember: Peters and Knisley had security cameras to the secured machines turned off two days before the trusted build, something that was not normal.

That’s weird because subsequently, after she was busted, Peters changed her job description of Wood, saying he was a “consultant” that she brought in to prove Dominion voting machines were being purposefully erased in order to hide the evidence that Donald Trump really won. You’d think if you were doing this MAGA-patriotic-brave work for fascism our democracy, you wouldn’t act like a thief in the night about it.

More distressing is the fact that Peters’ disgraceful activities may be connected to election fraud conspiracist, Colorado-based Joe Oltmann. According to the Colorado Times Recorder, Oltmann sent a very frightening email to former Trump attorney and lie-machine Sidney Powell shortly after Biden took office. In it, he made mention of “what we are doing in Colorado in gaining access to the Dominion systems under the radar. We have several county clerks cooperating.”

Coomer is the former Dominion Voting Systems executive who is suing the crew of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for defamation, along with Oltmann, after they used posts he made to his private network of 300 friends on Facebook to assert he somehow manipulated hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of votes in the November election. Oltmann reportedly also offers up to Powell and Giuliani, “103GB of raw files from Antrim County, Michigan voting machines.” It is the discovery of this defamation lawsuit that has brought Oltmann’s emails into the light.

Oltmann told the Colorado Times Recorder that Peters was not one of the people he was writing about “cooperating.” Oltmann also called the reporter writing this story “an [sic] fat evil piece of trash. When I am done with Coomer, I will come for you and the rest of your shill Antifa terrorists.”

Good people on both sides? Not so much.