Colorado Gov. Jared Polis fired two members of his own clemency board Wednesday for telling the public how he cut Tina Peters' prison sentence in half over their unanimous objections — and every American who thinks the justice system should answer to the people, not the powerful, should be paying attention.

When attorneys Azra Taslimi and Hannah Seigel Proff revealed that the board twice voted unanimously to reject Peters' early release, Polis didn't defend his decision on the merits. He purged them. The confidentiality rules that were supposed to protect clemency applicants are now being weaponized to shield the governor from accountability.

Peters, the former Mesa County clerk, was sentenced to nine years in prison in October 2024 after being convicted of four felonies for giving a person associated with Mike Lindell access to the county's voting system. Polis commuted her sentence in May, citing a Colorado appeals court ruling that found the trial judge violated Peters' First Amendment rights by improperly punishing her for protected speech about the 2020 election. CNN framed Peters simply as an "election denier" and emphasized President Trump's "long pressure campaign" to free her. The Denver Post noted that Polis faced swift criticism from fellow Democrats and an official censure by the state party — bipartisan pushback that CNN buried.

In letters obtained by CNN, Polis accused Taslimi and Proff of breaching "the required duty of confidentiality by publicly divulging Board members' votes." But Proff, who served on the board for nearly eight years, told CNN she understood the confidentiality rules "more as the confidentiality to protect the people who apply for clemency, not to protect the governor."

Taslimi cut straight to the real issue: "I'm not upset that he overrude our decision. I think what's upsetting is that we understand why he did it, which is that you know Tina Peters had a powerful ally behind her. She had political pressure applied in her name, and the governor capitulated to it, and that is what makes this unfair, and that is why I call it selective mercy, because you are giving her the benefit that you don't give or apply to anyone else."

The two women wrote in a Denver Post opinion piece: "The problem is not about Tina Peters' case in isolation. It is what his decision reveals. That the system bends for some and holds firm against everyone else." They noted Polis had a history of ignoring the board's recommendations to grant clemency to other applicants — but this time, when the political winds blew from Mar-a-Lago, he bent.

Governor spokesperson Eric Maruyama claimed that public disclosure of board votes "threatens the credibility of the board" and "colors future deliberations." The governor's office quietly announced new appointments to fill the vacant seats the same day.

Proff sees the writing on the wall: "I worry now that we've been terminated from the board what comes of this is that people are less likely to speak out … that politicians will go unchecked on these sort of decisions."

If the clemency process can be overridden by political pressure, and the only people who object get fired for it, what exactly is the board for? Polis wants Colorado to believe confidentiality protects applicants. The purges prove it protects him.