Griswold: President Trump has absolutely no authority whatsoever to pardon Tina Peters. And he cannot stand it. And I think it really boils down to the fact that they're both election deniers, they're both convicted felons. She was convicted of compromising voting equipment in Grand Junction, trying to prove his big lie. And she's evidence of what happens when you try to prove Trump's big lie and you mess around with voting equipment. She was sentenced to nine years of incarceration, which she's currently serving. And Trump just can't stand it.
So he threatened the state a couple weeks ago ...threatening quote 'harsh measures' if we wouldn't comply in releasing her. And then last week (September 2), he announced the decision to move Space Command. I think this is complete retaliation against the state. He actually said it was in part retaliation for two reasons. He mentioned Alabama voted for him. That's where they're moving Space Command. You know, he doesn't like that.
Coloradans have rejected him three times in a row, and then he blamed mail ballots. I fundamentally believe we have to stand strong against this type of intimidation.
Trump knows he cannot release. Tina Peters through pardon. He knows he cannot get rid of mail ballots through executive order, and so he tries to bully and push any type of opposition to surrender to his will. And it's going to start with Tina Peters or mail ballots. And if we don't stand strong now, it's gonna end with all of our fundamental freedoms. So I fundamentally believe we have to hold the line against this rogue president.
Jones: And there's been a lot of mud slinging in your direction regarding that decision, you know, both recently and then when that first broke. What has that been like for you at this point in your career where you're running for another public office?
Griswold: Well, I think very specifically, the threat atmosphere against me really intensified after the insurrection. I'd never really had many threats, and suddenly there's tens or hundreds rolling in.
Last year I received 1,800 physical threats or death threats. And I think it's a travesty. Election officials should not be threatened, women should not be threatened; there is definitely a gendered component to it. But it's part of what Trump is trying to do in his power grab. He's trying to intimidate people who are willing to stand up for our rights and our constitution out of office.
I'm not going to be intimidated. I'm going to hold the line. That's what I've done this whole time as Secretary of State. It's a big reason why I'm running for Attorney General. I am highly concerned about what is happening in this country with our democracy and our freedoms. And you know, I won't tell you it hasn't been scary at times, but I will tell you, I have never backed down and I'll continue doing the same.
Jones: I know you've been a huge proponent of mail-in ballots. I know that you passed the Colorado Election Security Act that made it a felony to tamper with election equipment, ballots and that sort of thing. What are the biggest threats to our election system and to our democracy with respect to your experience?
Griswold: Yeah, so, it's been an honor to be Secretary of State. I've been in the position to protect the right to vote, whether that's the 70% more drop boxes... We passed a law to guarantee access on public colleges and tribal lands. I led a new law called Automatic Voter Registration in 2019, and we've registered nearly 800,000 new voters since it was implemented in 2020.
And then when we saw the big lie really kick up and the extremism kick up on our elections, I've also stood firm, whether it was addressing Tina Peters in Mesa County, to passing the law that you mentioned, increasing our physical security. It's been an honor to hold the line. I believe the biggest threat to our elections right now is election denialism and extremism because it incites violence.
Just in June we had a county clerk's office down in Pagosa Springs firebombed by an election denier who threw a Molotov cocktail through the window, where the voting equipment was in that room. We've seen a 39% turnover of county clerks in the state of Colorado since 2020, in a large part because of the threat environment.
So we are seeing an intensification of extremism. Good people, Republicans and Democrats, a lot of them say, 'I did not sign up for this. I'm a civil servant.' But luckily, we've seen folks take their place and we're ready to go, you know? Since Trump took office in his second term, he has weakened the security of our elections.
One of the first things he did was pardon the January 6th insurrectionists, trying to send a signal to folks. If you do my bidding, even if it's against the law, you'll be fine. By the way, that has not worked out so well for Tina Peters. He's also disbanded the FBI's work in the Department of Homeland Security's work on foreign interference.
He fired a lot of the federal employees that we used to work with on election security in the counties. And I've again been really glad to be Secretary of State because we're stepping into that space. We are seeing federal backlash.
Jones: Do you have a solid, actionable plan to protect Coloradans' voting rights from federal attack?
Griswold: That's a great question. Yes, but it requires a lot of imagination. So we're continually building our contingency plans for what may come. That's what I did my first cycle, or excuse me, the first presidential cycle with Donald Trump on the ballot in 2020. That's what we did in 24, and we're reviving that now for the 26 elections.
I will say Colorado's elections are the safest in the nation, they're the most accessible in the nation. And a large part of that is because our mail ballots, they can't be hacked by foreign adversaries. They're a piece of paper. And then we just have so much great security along the way of our elections.
When you vote, your signature is checked. There's bipartisan over to oversight over the whole process. The voting equipment is checked by bipartisan teams before it's used, and we have something called a risk limiting audit, [the] best audits in the country. So we are safe and secure. The real question becomes the political questions, not to take us back to 2020, but I vividly remember having to enter into litigation against the United States Postal Service two times because Trump was trying to cut people's overtime [and] pull mail sorters out of the mail room.
I take it to try to slow down the delivery of mail ballots. So we had to intervene two times and we won. So we will be ready. It's a lot of contingency planning. I fundamentally believe we are the most prepared state in the country for elections and we'll continue to lead in that arena.
The full interview with Jena Griswold can be heard here.
