Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell rage about the indictment of pro-Trump clerk accused of tampering with election equipment

Bannon and Lindell tell audience to contact the judge in Tina Peters' case, double down in support of Peters' campaign for CO secretary of state, and attack Republicans telling her to drop out

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the March 9, 2022, edition of Lindell TV's War Room: Battleground

MIKE LINDELL (CEO, MY PILLOW): The big news of the day, Steve, is Tina Peters. I got notice this morning. All the media has been calling me – Mike, there's a $500 bill, cash bail, Steve. I talked to the lawyers in Mesa County. They've been lawyers there for decades. They said In the history of Mesa County, maybe the United States, never have they ever seen a bail like this, unless you were a murderer. It's – this is – it comes like – I've been telling the media, Steve, this is a complete hit job. It's all trumped-up charges. They're doing it to attack because they're afraid that they're covering up the – Jena Griswold, the secretary of state and Dominion, the crimes against our country. That they deleted the 2020 election and we have proof of it all. That's all come out in this report, one and two; report three will be coming out soon. Tina is in jail right now. But she will have a bail hearing tomorrow morning. We have a judge, the judge that put this bail so high, Steve, is Judge Gretchen Larson. Shame on you, Gretchen Larson. You can –We're going to have her. I don't know if we haven't. No, but we're going to have it up in my show, coming up next, we're going to put our phone number up there. Everyone can call out and leave a recording and voice your opinion. Why would you set this? Tina Peters is a gold star mother. She has never broken a law in her life. She's never spent one minute in jail.

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Hold it, hold it, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. But I want everybody to color in the line when you call, when you get a number, I want everyone to call in the line. We're going to do this, we are going to be classy. We're going to be tough. You think we're going to back down at all one inch on Tina Peters, you are dead wrong. She's a gold throne mother and a fine woman. And I got to tell you the concept in this nation that a gold star mother has to spend a night in jail. I want everybody in this audience to embrace that. I want everybody in this audience and they try to dog Trump out of the race in 16, because of his comments about a gold star mother – and I'm not justifying those comments – to sit in the state of Colorado. The people did this. Your names will live in shame forever, and we're going to make sure they do. To have a gold star mother has to spend the night in jail because of her service as a public, as a public servant, an election that we're going to prove was stolen. But the concept that you would put a gold star mother in jail overnight.

LINDELL: It's disgusting.

BANNON: You have no earthly idea, it's revolting, and you have no earthly idea what – you're OK. We're going to color inside the lines. But Tina Peters is now a national crusade, OK, a national crusade. We have no honor if we're prepared to have a gold star mother sit in a cold jail out there in Mesa County, Ariz. – Mesa County, Colorado. Mike Lindell.

LINDELL: Yeah. You know, Steve, you're right. And another call I got today was from – actually it was from The Washington Post. They called me up and they said, Mike – them and the newspaper from Colorado, from Denver, Colorado – said, Mike, did you hear the RNC chair of Colorado wants Tina Peters to stand down and back off as running for secretary of state?

BANNON: Never happen.

LINDELL: And I said, You know what? Never had the RNC. That's the RNC's problem. They've been picking candidates out there like Brad Raffensperger down in Georgia that are criminals. This time is different, Steve. Tina Peters are the people that we need in power. We need people to have their back.

BANNON: We want the RNC chairman of Colorado to step down. That's what we want, and we're going to demand it, and we're going to make it happen. We don't want to hear about the [unintelligible] – she never going to back down. And by the way, she's going to be the next Secretary of State in the state of Colorado. This is a disgrace.

LINDELL: Absolutely.

BANNON: This is a disgrace for this nation to put a gold star mother in jail and the five – Mike, we've got to work to get that $500,000 right away and get her out of jail. This is unbelievable. Let me bring in Sharona ...

LINDELL: Yes. And Steve, I'm going to tell everyone

BANNON: No, but we got to force – we ought to force the judge to meet tonight, there's no reason to keep her in jail. We can get the cash to them. They say for some administrative reason to keep a gold star mother that 60, some years old, that's got a husband in a nursing home.

LINDELL: Now it's just disgusting Steve.

BANNON: Put her in jail?

...

BANNON: Not going to take this. Not going to take this. OK? You have triggered a sleeping giant in this country. OK, the silent majority is not going to accept this. You think our play smash-mouth and putting people in jail? You got another thing coming, folks.

From the New York Times report about Peters' indictment:

Tina Peters, a county clerk running as a Republican for secretary of state of Colorado, was indicted Tuesday evening on 10 criminal counts related to allegations that she tampered with election equipment after the 2020 election.

The indictment, which the district attorney of Mesa County, Colo., announced on Wednesday, is connected to Ms. Peters’s work as the top county election administrator, a role in which she promoted former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen. Because of Ms. Peters’s unusual scheme to interfere with voting machines, state officials “could not establish confidence in the integrity or security” of elections equipment, the indictment said.

Ms. Peters’s case is a prominent example of how false theories about election fraud and Republican-led calls for “audits” of the 2020 vote count have created election-security threats involving the integrity of voting machines, software and other election equipment. And in running for secretary of state, Ms. Peters is among a group of brazenly partisan candidates who claim that Mr. Trump may have won the election and who are transforming races around the country for such once little-known offices.

A grand jury indicted Ms. Peters on both felony and misdemeanor charges, including counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.