CBS News invited the Colorado secretary of state who tried to ban Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot to lecture Americans about election integrity on 60 Minutes Sunday — without asking her about her own security failures.
Jena Griswold joined the broadcast to denounce former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for preserving election data while questioning the 2020 results. Griswold worked with state Attorney General Phil Weiser to prosecute Peters.
“Tina Peters ordered that her video surveillance cameras be turned off and then took images of the voting equipment and shared it with a network of election deniers.”
An appeals court found the sentencing judge’s “comments about Peters’ beliefs were improper” and vacated the original sentence, according to Courthouse News. A jury acquitted Peters of identity theft charges. Gov. Jared Polis later commuted her sentence, citing the appeals court’s reasoning.
Peters maintained she sought to preserve election records before a state-mandated system update. Colorado law permitted clerks to access and archive hard drives, though Peters may not have followed proper procedures. She changed no ballots or results.
CBS host Bill Whitaker asked Griswold what was harmed by Peters’ actions.
“Voting equipment, confidence in Colorado elections and American elections, and election workers,” Griswold said.
But Whitaker failed to ask how those things were actually harmed. He also declined to question Griswold about her own election security failures.
Griswold’s office posted passwords to statewide voting systems online. The secretary’s office put an Excel file on the web with a “hidden” page containing 600 passwords to voting systems for nearly every county in the state. The leak happened while Colorado voting was already underway.
Griswold insisted there was no “immediate security threat.” She has not been charged in relation to that breach.
Griswold also sent out 31,000 postcards to foreign nationals with voter registration information before the 2022 midterms. Her office used data from the Electronic Registration Information Center that included noncitizens who obtained Colorado driver’s licenses. Griswold then refused to cooperate with county officials checking whether any ineligible residents illegally voted.
The official CBS News invited to lecture Americans about election confidence also tried using lawfare to deny voters the chance to vote for Trump.
Left-wing activist group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington backed a challenge by Colorado voters to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars Confederate insurrectionists from holding office. The left-leaning Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Trump was ineligible.
Griswold filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing states can keep Trump off the ballot. She said Trump should not get a “get out of jail free” card.
The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision vetoing Griswold’s lawfare efforts, ruling states do not have constitutional authority to kick Trump off the ballot.
Griswold said she was “disappointed” when the high court rebuked her attempt and called it “concerning that federal candidates, at this point, can engage in insurrection and then face no accountability for ballot access.”
CBS could have asked Griswold how her warnings about election confidence cohere with her support of an unconstitutional attempt to remove Trump from the ballot. Instead, the 60 Minutes interview gave Griswold a free pass to smear Peters while evading scrutiny of her own failures.
“[Tina Peters] was elected by her county to uphold the elections. Instead, she attacked the elections from within,” says Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. https://t.co/qRleAYmlvn pic.twitter.com/ygNXfoaf1D
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 25, 2026
