Battering Ram Used In Home Search of Mesa County Clerk Supporter
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (CBS4) - The FBI searched four homes on Colorado's Western Slope this week, connected to an alleged breach of election security and alleged misuse of campaign funds. The door to Sharronna Bishop's Garfield County home appears that it was entered by force.
"They were yelling that this was the FBI, open the door. I took my two children into their bedroom," Bishop told CBS4's Rick Sallinger.
It was Tuesday when federal and state agents arrived with a search warrant.
Bishop recalled, "Just as we were about to open the door it flew open. They had used a ram to bust down the door."
She says the door wasn't locked. Bishop, a former campaign manager for Rep. Lauren Boebert, says she was told the search was part of a wire fraud investigation.
The same day, Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters' home was searched.
Peters told CBS4 she felt she was being investigated because of how she was doing her job, "I took the initiative to investigate the 2020 election and the steps taken by the Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold."
Voting machine information from Mesa County somehow ended up on a public website. In August, Griswold admonished Peters.
"The Mesa County Clerk and Recorder allowed a security breach and, by all evidence at this point, assisted it," said Griswold.
Now four homes have been searched, phones and computers seized as part of a criminal investigation by the FBI, Colorado Attorney General and the Mesa County District Attorney. Bishop said she supports Peters and says she has had nothing to do with Boebert since last year.
"This is not what we do in America. We don't silence people like this. We don't shut them down because of what they are saying and we certainly don't criminalize and terrorize them, not in America," said Bishop with tears in her eyes.
The Colorado Attorney General's Office released a statement reading, "We dispute how some have characterized the law enforcement action carried out earlier this week in Mesa and Garfield Counties. This judicially authorized search was executed in a professional and lawful manner."
