August 12

A Colorado jury convicts Tina Peters in the Mesa County voting-equipment breach

A Colorado jury convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on felony and misdemeanor counts tied to a breach of county voting equipment. Prosecutors said Peters helped an unauthorized person use another person's security badge during a trusted-build process and copy election-system data. Peters became a national figure among election deniers, but the verdict treated the breach as official misconduct and criminal impersonation, not proof of voter fraud.

Mesa County jury convicts clerk Tina Peters on seven counts including four felonies

A Mesa County jury found former clerk Tina Peters guilty on August 12, 2024, on seven of ten charges related to the election equipment breach. The four felony convictions included three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. Peters was also convicted of three misdemeanors: official misconduct, violation of duty, and failure to comply with the Secretary of State.

Senate Judiciary Committee demands Garland release all Epstein investigative files and name any uncharged co-conspirators

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley sent a bipartisan letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding the DOJ produce all investigative files related to the Epstein case, identify any individuals named as co-conspirators who were not charged, and explain why the 2008 non-prosecution agreement was structured to grant immunity to unnamed parties. The committee set a 30-day deadline for a substantive response. DOJ provided a partial response in October 2022, declining to identify uncharged individuals.

Griswold decertifies Mesa County's Dominion machines after Peters' breach exposes passwords online

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold decertified Mesa County's Dominion Voting Systems equipment on August 12, 2021, after forensic images of the election server and partially unredacted passwords appeared on a conspiracy website. Griswold banned anyone from touching the equipment without her written permission and dispatched state staff to secure the machines. The decertification made Mesa County the first Colorado county forced to replace its entire election system due to a clerk's own deliberate actions. A Mesa County court later barred Peters from overseeing the November 2021 election.

Charlottesville attacker drives car into anti-racist counterprotesters

James Alex Fields Jr. drove into a crowd of counterprotesters at the Unite the Right rally, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. He later pleaded guilty to federal hate-crime charges, making the attack one of the clearest modern examples of white supremacist political violence.

John Huang pleads guilty in 1996 campaign-finance scandal

On Aug. 12, 1999, former Commerce Department official and Democratic fundraiser John Huang pleaded guilty to a felony campaign-finance charge. Huang admitted arranging illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee and became one of the central figures in the 1996 fundraising scandal.

Nixon signs Postal Reorganization Act transforming Post Office Department into independent USPS

President Nixon signs the Postal Reorganization Act (P.L. 91-375), transforming the U.S. Post Office Department, a cabinet agency since 1792, into the independent United States Postal Service, a government-owned corporation that funds itself through postage revenue. The law responds to the March 1970 nationwide postal strike, the largest strike against the federal government in U.S. history, and growing deficits. The new USPS structure removes the postmaster general from the Cabinet and creates a Board of Governors to lead the agency at arm's length from political control.