General Discussion

The effort didn’t amount to much, but the president’s interest in the case didn’t fade. And in May, the Republican not only called for Peters’ release from prison, he also directed the Justice Department to take “all necessary action” to help secure her freedom. As part of the same online harangue, Trump, who lacks the authority to pardon those convicted of state crimes, went on to describe Peters as a “Political Prisoner” and a “hostage” whose trial deserved to be seen as “a Communist persecution.”

This, too, went largely ignored, prompting the president to kick things up a notch. NBC News reported:

Trump threatened to take unspecified ‘harsh measures’ if Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, is not released from prison. The president referred to Peters as ‘a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians,’ calling to ‘FREE TINA PETERS.’

......Despite Trump’s apparent interest in her case, there’s effectively nothing he can do: This was a state official, charged with state crimes, by state prosecutors, in a state court, with a state jury, overseen by a state judge, which necessarily means neither the president nor his Justice Department can overturn Peters’ criminal conviction.

But Trump apparently finds that unsatisfying. He wants to free his conspiratorial ally anyway, and so he’s now threatening a state in his own country with unspecified “harsh measures.”

I won’t pretend to know what, if anything, will come of this, but for all of the hysterical and baseless Republican conspiracy theories during Joe Biden’s presidency about “weaponized” prosecutions and a “two-tiered” justice system, Trump and his team are creating the very conditions the GOP condemned. The incumbent president — through his scandalous pardons, his intervention in cases such as Peters’ and his willingness to sic prosecutors on his perceived political enemies — is going out of his way to make clear that his allies will be held to different legal standards than everyone else.

The brazenness is so plainly ridiculous, the Trump administration is hardly even trying to keep up appearances — and there’s every reason to believe this will get worse in the coming days, weeks, months and years.