Today we're going to hear from Tina Peters. She's the Mesa County, Colorado
clerk
She has responsibility over motor vehicles and elections and she's got a story
It's pretty interesting and it's connected to a lot of overreach from the FBI. You'll want to hear it. That's next
Hey, welcome back to the Barry Farris show culture shift. Great to have you with us today. We've got a special guest. Her name is Tina Peters. She's the county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado. That's a far west county in Colorado. Typically a very conservative county. So let's just get right to it. Tina, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate you coming along. When did you get elected?
To your post in 2018. Okay. And was that by a landslide or by a squeaker or how did that work for you?
Well, I was, I had someone in the office who was opposing me and, um, I, I ran on increasing, uh, customer service and reducing wait times. The wait times in motor vehicle were three plus hours. And I knew as a business owner, I could, I could, uh, change that.
So your motivation for jumping into politics was to reduce wait time at the motor vehicles.
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. So your, your, your grand ambition was to help people have a better customer experience at the department of motor vehicles in Mesa County.
Yes. And in government in general. Yes.
So I'm just, I know I'm repeating myself, but you're basically thinking in terms of the customer and you wanted them to have a better experience. And so they're paying taxes and while they're involved in the process that almost all of us have to be involved in at some point, which is connected to the department of motor vehicles.
You wanted that experience to go from three hours down to what, what was your goal?
To eliminate wait times. I ended up.
No wait times at all, like walk in and get it.
That's my, that was my goal. And, uh.
To walk in and have, not have a number, just literally walk in and goes straight to the desk.
Has that ever happened before in the history of department motor vehicles in the whole world?
Not that I know of. I opened several other offices to, uh, to increase customer service and, um, and then trained people to, to appreciate, appreciate the, uh, uh, the customer.
I told them they were paying their paycheck and, uh, we needed to treat them with respect. And as a result, they, the, the employees found that the, uh, the customers were nicer and, uh.
What did you get the wait times down to? I mean, like you've been in it for almost three years now, I guess, three years. What, what, what did the wait times get down to?
Right. Well, you know, it fluctuates because of the time of year.
But if they were on average three hours, what's the on average now?
Three plus hours, 30 minutes.
Okay. So you went from three hours to 30 minutes.
So it's a significant improvement.
That's great. So you accomplished your goal, which that was your primary goal when you were coming in, you weren't thinking, I want to get into a huge, um, election integrity related controversy and get intimidated by the secretary of state and maybe the FBI and all that.
That wasn't part of your ambition to get into politics.
No, no, my, my ambition to get into politics was to get back to serve.
So you accomplished that goal.
That was your primary goal.
And you also found that part of your responsibility as a county clerk is over that whole county.
You've got a couple of responsibilities related to elections, right?
That's correct. I'm, I oversee five divisions and elections is, is one of them. Yes.
And, and the elections and altogether, just to give everybody an idea, how many employees are under you total?
35.
Okay. So it's a, it's a real job. It's a real CEO position, um, of a department, uh, of the government.
And you ultimately answer to the people because they're the ones that elected you. Right.
And there's certain divisions of power and such. Right. I mean, you, you, you ultimately review reports to the secretary of state for the state. Is that how it works? Or who do you report to who's, who's in your picking order of authority above you?
There is no one, just the American people, the people.
A lot of people don't know that they kind of think differently. So you really report kind of like a sheriff directly to the people of the county.
That's correct. Yes.
So that's kind of a good post for somebody who's been in business for a while. You've been in business for how many years?
32 years.
And you guys, you and your husband were in the construction business. Is that right?
That's right. Very successful. We weathered through the 2008 downturn, um, made some big investments.
some adjustments.
Building homes or commercial buildings or both, or what did you build?
We used to do, we used to do both and then we, we scaled it down after, after many years,
we scaled it down to, uh, uh, mainly, uh, a foundation repair, things like that.
Yeah.
All right.
Great.
Fantastic.
Well, that's, that's great.
That's, that's a tough job.
There's a lot to being a general contractor and not everyone knows how hard that is, but
just like a lot of businesses that unless you're in it, you don't realize all the components
of it.
Good for you.
Congratulations.
So you brought, you want to bring your business experience to the political world and minus
the controversy that you weren't expecting that we're going to talk about in just a minute
and the whole FBI issue and the whole incident, um, your, your primary goal, if that didn't,
if that was non-existent has been accomplished, you've been able to improve customer experience,
which is what your primary motivation for running politics was.
Am I saying that right?
Is that correct?
That's correct.
I serve the people of the County and I serve them.
All right.
Well, it sounds like a fun job now that I understand it better and that you really are
reporting directly to the people.
And that's kind of fun.
I don't think most of us knew that before.
All right.
So now, um, I want to just spend before we jump into the action thriller part.
All right.
Uh, just one more moment about you personally.
So you, um, are a gold star mom.
That's correct.
I've served nine years as a Navy SEAL serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Okay.
And you, um, I saw a picture of him, he's a handsome guy and so sorry for your loss.
Uh, it seems like he was also a tough guy.
Yeah.
I guess pretty much everybody has to be as a Navy SEAL.
He was a big guy too.
Right.
Wasn't he kind of tall?
Big guy.
Uh, great heart.
He loved this country.
Uh, when I, when I told him I was running for office, he said, mom, you got this.
He said, the only thing is you'll probably do more than what's required.
Uh, and so little did he know now, when did he, when did he pass as it relates to you
and the election and all that?
When was that happening?
He passed away.
He was killed tragically a Memorial day, uh, 2017, uh, one month, one month before I won
the primary.
Oh my goodness.
That's a heartbreak.
I'm so sorry.
Unexpected.
He was 37 years old.
Love life.
Love this country.
It's getting ready to be deployed again to Iraq.
And, uh, when this happened, well, thank you for your role in his service.
Now your, your husband served as well.
Correct.
He done.
He was a Marine.
Uh, he was, uh, affected by agent orange and now a nursing home with Parkinson's and dementia
in Vietnam.
He did.
Yes.
So bless your heart.
You've had a tough life.
You're also a survivor yourself.
Aren't you?
Tell us about that real quick.
Yes.
Cancer survivor.
And I prayed that I would never forget what that felt like, uh, the despair, the, uh,
of being given a cancer diagnosis.
So I really feel for people out there that are going through that.
It's very difficult.
Thank you for your fight.
Uh, my wife's a survivor as well.
Um, and, uh, you guys have a similar spunk and fight to you.
And I think that that goes a long way to helping.
You're a tough lady.
You've been through a lot.
And, um, but I don't think most people that have heard about you through just the sensational
media would know about this part of your story or that your primary motivation for entering
this particular political post was truly to be, I'm going to put words in your mouth,
but you tell me if this is accurate, kind of a mama bear, um, for your County.
Is that a fair statement?
That's correct.
And for my employees, I get, I get, I get a little emotional when I talk about the people
of Mesa County, cause I love them.
I walked door to door, uh, talking to them in 2016 during the 2016 election.
And I just asked them, I would just say, you know, I'm just a volunteer.
How do you feel about the election?
And I would just listen.
It didn't matter if they were Democrat, Republican, unaffiliated.
I just listened to them.
I fell in love with them and I fell in love with my, my, uh, employees.
They are family.
Family is the big thing.
So I get, I get a little emotional when I start talking about, about the people.
Cause I really do love them.
Well, my, my suspicion is if we went down the pecking order and interviewed some of
those people, they would probably have high regard for you because it's coming through
loud and clear that you're a servant leader and you really want to take care of them.
And it doesn't sound like you were doing this for any selfishly, this selfish ambition purpose.
You were moving into politics for the benefit of your County is what it sounds like to me.
Uh, is that, is that a fair statement?
I've never done anything from selfish ambition.
That is correct.
Well, thank you for having a son that, uh, served us for.
a husband that served and protected us that you have to continue to have
challenges with now and for your own challenges. So thank you for all that.
All right, now we're going to move from that. The part about Tina being what
sounds to me like a good person that would be having a fair and reasonable
goal and objective to benefit her county to the controversy. Now, before
we get into the details that built for the controversy, I just want the
trailer of the action because you there was something that happened there
that not a lot of people know. And I don't know if I even understand the
full story. So just help me understand the swooping away and why you were
being swept away and what's going on there. Is your life under threat or
what's happening? My life was under threat. I was swept away
by political operatives that do not want the truth or don't want to be
exposed, whatever that means. And evidently I've touched the nerve. And
so I was swept away for my own safety. I was kept under security after my
hotel just from some wealthy benefactor that swept you away, was observing the
situation. He got involved and helped protect you. That's correct.
And then my hotel room was broken into and so I was swept away
again and then I had 24-7 security. Wow. So how long did all of that process last?
The fear of your life sweeping away 24-7 security before you were able to
resume duties when things settled down and got safer for you? That was about
four weeks. That's a long time. So a month of sleepless nights? That's correct. I had
packed for two days and it turned into well over a month. Wow. And why did it
settle down? Did they just give up or was the essence of the problem taken
care of? Or why did you go from having a threat against your life to not having one?
Well, in the meantime, there were operatives that in the state and county and federal
government, they were trying to take over my office and I needed to come back.
And they were, I felt at that point because of some of the irregularities that were being
exposed that it was safe to do so. I still don't know. I still have people that are
wanting to provide me protection. Okay. So now I asked you if it was the FBI. Are you not sure
that it was the FBI or do you think it was the FBI? Was the FBI involved in any of the
ramming down of a door or anything? Because my understanding was there was a ramming down of
a door at some point. Is that true? Or ransacking an apartment or what was ransacked?
November 16th, the FBI raided mine and three other people's homes. And one lady,
yes, my personal home. Okay, I want to get back to that. Because that kind of hits a nerve for me
in terms of what the goal and the mission of the FBI is supposed to be. So let's get back to that.
So they raided your home and November 16th, after the elections, of course, you were raising
issues of concern in your county that you are overseeing. Is that correct? That's correct.
The citizens kept bringing me information and their concerns. And it was as their elected
official, it was my responsibility to investigate them. Yes. So you were investigating these
concerns and they were election integrity issues. And how would you describe what happened after
that? When you were swept away and right before that, when you knew you were being swept away,
what was happening? You found something big or they thought you were going to find something big
or what was the spark? Yeah, well, I was concerned that there were going to be some
election records deleted off of the Mesa County citizens server. And so I just, I made a copy,
which is perfectly legal to do. So I made it before they came in and did this trusted build.
And then I made a copy after. And when the copies were compared, there were some
grave concerns when they discovered. You made a copy of a before and after, and you could just
do your own. It wouldn't necessarily be a forensic audit, but you could just do your own kind of
and sense audit and say, Hey, there's some concerns here and that's what you were raising.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
I just wanted to preserve the election records because by a state law, election records have
to be preserved for 25 months and federal law, 22 months.
And it is my responsibility to preserve those election records.
And I felt they might be, you were responding in your mind to the people who are your boss,
which is the people of Mesa County.
And you have a responsibility kind of like a sheriff to handle elections in an honest
way as part of your duty.
So this wasn't just this customer experience strategy concept.
You were trying to do something that's fairly serious, which is preserve what you believed
to be a significant problem.
And you wanted to make sure that there was evidence to support whatever the outcome was.
And you wanted to be able to hold on to that as part of your job and be able to, then what?
I mean, give that to authorities that would be able to do something with it or what?
Because the law says you have to preserve it.
Preserve it.
I had no idea what would be found.
I just knew that.
But you didn't have this big, where some people have maybe accused you of having this conspiracy
theorist mindset of trying to do a gotcha against the federal government.
That wasn't your mindset.
You were literally just trying to do your duty as a county clerk and preserve records.
That is something that you were required to do by state law and federal for two years.
That's true.
Yes.
And that preservation is what caused the problem.
That's when there was the break-in.
Is that correct?
Yes.
That's correct.
And that happened pretty much right after they knew that you were preserving these records.
That's right.
The before and after.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Fair enough.
So I want to divert for just a moment to back to before the controversy, building up to
the election, I'm sure you as a conservative and in a conservative county had some run-ins
with the secretary of state who was known to be not conservative.
And I'm sure you could amplify why that's the case.
What was that relationship like between the secretary of state who doesn't really have
any direct authority over you and yourself?
The secretary of state, that position should be a nonpartisan position.
And Jenna Griswold has weaponized her office to become, she is the chair for the Democrat
Association of Secretaries of State.
And their main goal is to get Democrat secretaries of state elected all across the country.
And so other clerks have had this type of opposition, the same as myself.
Right.
You're not the only one with that.
That's correct.
But she has an agenda.
So you knew going into the election that you would have some, at least political opposition
to you doing your duties.
Was that fair to say?
Well, there should not be, I mean, everyone deserves a free and fair election.
So it has nothing to do with what party you're of.
I love, like I've said before, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarian, Green
Party.
It doesn't matter.
We're all Americans and we're all citizens just trying to preserve our way of life and
the republic.
So that's our goal as Americans.
So we've got an FBI coming in and breaking into your home, right?
Yes.
And you were gone when they broke into your home.
Oh, no, no, I was there.
That was here.
And when you were there, did they put you in handcuffs?
No, they did.
Another woman in front of her kids put her and her husband in handcuffs with guns drawn
and for just her support of me and school board.
My goodness.
Yeah.
We'll have to talk to her at another time.
But in your situation, they came into your home.
It was pretty intimidating.
They kind of ransacked the home, took things?
Yes.
Well, they came to the door a little bit after 6 a.m., woke me up.
As I have a ring doorbell, they actually put a piece of tape, walked up to the ring doorbell,
put a piece of tape over it to obscure what they were doing.
And then that was later.
They were blocking any surveillance that you had.
Right.
And then it was it was removed by someone, by one of my people.
Right.
Um, they, I can never forget, um, that feeling, uh, when you hear those
forceful knocks and then someone saying, open up FBI search.
Well, let's talk about what the duties are for a minute.
Let me see if you're guilty of any crimes here.
Um, so let's see, uh, the FBI's mission I'm reading from the, uh, uh, from their
actual official mission is, uh, uh, national security and law enforcement.
Um, and, and they can, they can use intelligence in a pretty broad way.
It's the only, um, security, uh, department, the only us intelligence
community, um, that has broad authority in the United States.
And that's after big criminals, terrorist acts, that type of a thing,
mostly terrorist acts, threats to Homeland threats to the American people at large.
So they're supposed to, um, swear on the constitution
to protect the American people.
So according to them, their primary responsibility is to protect the
United States from terrorist attacks.
Were you involved in any terrorist attacks?
No.
And I didn't feel very protected when they raided when you didn't feel very
protected.
How about, uh, protecting the United States against foreign
intelligence and espionage?
Were you involved in any espionage or anything?
No, no, never.
You, uh, uh, they want to protect the United States against cyber-based
attacks using high technology, crime, cyber criminal activity.
Any, any of that, uh, ring a bell for you?
Were you guilty of that?
I can run a computer, but I need some help with some things.
So you weren't hacking into any, uh, high level groups and, and, and, and, and
involved in a cyber criminal activity.
No, absolutely not.
So, um, we've got the, uh, uh, uh, they're supposed to combat, uh, corruption
and, um, gross civil rights violations.
Were you in violation of any civil rights act or did you, was there
any corruption in your, in your office?
Did you pay yourself more than you should have or, um, create a phantom
employee or involved in any embezzlement or, or, or, or can you say you're pretty
clean there?
No, no, I don't even have a parking ticket.
Okay.
It's kind of hard to find out why the FBI is breaking into your home here.
They're also supposed to combat transnational criminal, criminal
enterprises.
Were you involved in any trans national criminal enterprises?
Tina?
No, no, I'm not even sure what that is.
Significant white collar crime.
No.
Any major violent crime.
Never.
This is what the FBI is supposed to be spending their time and energy on.
The FBI is not supposed to be crashing into people's homes when a person
is just fulfilling their duties.
In your view, you were trying to provide a good customer experience
for the Mesa County citizens, whether they voted or not for that
portion of your job, that was your motivation to get it.
And you have two pieces of your job, two of your five functions
that are elections related.
And in there, in that file, in that job duty, you also need to
preserve and keep records, right?
And so you are attempting to fulfill the duties of your job.
It doesn't sound like to me, the FBI had any role whatsoever.
Can you think of any reason, any rational reason the FBI should be
banging down your door and blocking off any potential
surveillance that you have?
No, you know, the, the, uh, the DOJ Merrick Garland, we can see
they've been weaponized against school board moms and anyone
that opposes their agenda.
And so I feel like this has been a tactic to intimidate me and my
staff, uh, what they're going through is just unforgivable.
My chief deputy, uh, what is out on, um, felony charges of
burglary, uh, which is totally ridiculous.
She is the clerk in my stead.
They've removed her on these trumped up charges and my elections
manager was fired without giving any reason for her firing.
What's the recourse
for the, for the people to hear the truth?
You know, we, we need people.
We need this story to get out, uh, Barry.
And that's why I appreciate you so much is the American people need to
know if something like this can happen to an ordinary citizen and elected
official to that's just trying to preserve, um, election records or
improve the quality of life of citizens, um, that they can be harassed and
intimidated that it could happen to each one of us.
Well, this is this is so important.
You are a courageous woman, and I'm very grateful that you came on our show.
You know, people, people of the world, whoever's listening and watching.
I just got to tell you something.
This is crazy.
I mean, here's this woman who is a delightful person, had lots of life struggles, lost her son who serves valiantly.
Her husband is suffering extraordinarily from his willingness to serve this country.
And she had to combat physical issues for herself.
And then she wants to jump into politics to reduce wait times for Department of Motor Vehicles.
She just wants you to have a better customer experience.
That's her grand ambition.
That's a pretty solid reason to enter politics.
We need more people like her.
The FBI needs to be spanked.
This is ridiculous.
Their goals should be limited to what their mission initially was.
They should not be attempting to terrorize good American people, whether they agree with them or not.
It's not their place.
Freedom matters.
And the FBI needs to be curtailed.
So I'm encouraging everyone to get a surveillance system in their homes that ties directly to one of those cybersecurity based systems that are encrypted.
And when that's the case, the FBI can't get it.
You'll have it and you'll be able to use that as a countermeasure.
If all of this was under surveillance, it would have been easier for this story to be made known.
So I'm encouraging every one of you who have an opinion, whether it's my opinion or someone else's opinion.
And if you're wanting to express it, get yourself that internal surveillance system.
So if the FBI ever comes and bangs on your door and is way outside their bounds, maybe we can crimp their authority back to the more limited place and scope that it should be to go after real criminals, not people who have a different opinion to your freedom.
God bless you.
Hi, I'm David Farah.
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