Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters during a livestream interview Saturday said explicitly what she had previously only hinted at – that a Mesa County resident named Gerald Wood was a knowing participant in a plan to allow another person to use his identity.
She also said that Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and nationally influential proponent of the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, paid for Wood’s attorney, an assertion that Lindell on Wednesday disputed.
Peters, a Republican who promotes election conspiracy theories, is under felony indictment for involvement in an alleged security breach in her own elections office last year. She facilitated the creation of election system hard drive copies, and sensitive information from the system later became public. As part of those activities, she recruited Fruita resident Wood, a software engineer, to undergo a background check with Mesa County and perform IT work.
Peters and Wood generally agree on that much. But prosecutors, based partly on Wood’s testimony, allege that Peters’ team took Wood’s county ID and allowed another person to use it to impersonate Wood and conceal that person’s own identity during a secure election system software update on May 25, 2021, that involved a member of Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office. Wood has suggested he did not understand why Mesa County elections officials asked for his county ID badge after he obtained it.
“I did not perjure myself. I am considered a victim in this. I wasn’t there and I wasn’t part of this,” he told The Colorado Sun in June.
Peters, on the other hand, has insisted Wood “perjured himself on the stand, and he’s going to have to deal with that.”
On Saturday, she elaborated on this accusation.
“Gerald Wood stepped up and said, ‘I will do this for my country, I will give my name, and I will go get the badge, and you can use that,'” she told host Zak Paine during the Red Pill News Saturday Night Livestream.
She later suggested that there are witnesses who could attest that Wood was an accomplice rather than a victim, including Joe Oltmann, an election denier and podcaster with deep ties to Colorado, and Lindell.
“He was bragging to Joe Oltmann about how he was so proud to be doing this for his country,” Peters said about Wood. “And Mike Lindell was paying for his attorney.”
Reached by phone Wednesday, Lindell denied knowing anything about Wood.
“I don’t know who he is, so I did not pay for that. I never paid for anybody’s lawyers there,” he said.
Lindell at first rejected the notion that Peters said he paid for Wood’s attorney. When a reporter said she indeed had, Lindell said, “If she said that, she’s misconstrued.”
The reporter texted Lindell a clip of Peters speaking with Paine. Lindell did not respond to the text.
Wood through his wife, Wendi Wood, declined to comment.
Investigators allege that the person who impersonated Wood was Conan Hayes, a former professional surfer and election conspiracist.
Earlier this month, FBI agents seized Lindell’s cellphone in connection with the Peters case.
Peters’ trial is due to begin March 6. She has pleaded not guilty.
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