President Donald Trump declared he would issue a full pardon to Tina Peters, the ex-Republican clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, who was found guilty of participating in a plot to back Trump’s false assertions that the 2020 election was rigged and given a nine-year prison sentence.

“Democrats have relentlessly targeted TINA PETERS, a Patriot who just wanted to ensure our Elections were Fair and Honest,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “Tina is in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections. Today, I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her efforts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

However, Trump lacks the authority to pardon Peters. Presidential clemency powers apply only to federal cases, whereas Peters—who is the sole Trump ally currently incarcerated related to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election—was convicted in a state court last year.

This means Trump’s announcement is not an actual pardon but merely a symbolic gesture of support. Still, it represents a peak in his administration’s advocacy for the former county clerk, whom the President in May referred to as a “” and stated was being “horribly and unjustly punished.”

Senior Justice Department officials previously urged a federal judge in March to give “prompt and careful” consideration to releasing Peters from state prison after she filed a federal lawsuit arguing her constitutional rights had been violated and requesting to be released on bond while appealing her conviction. 

“Reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’ case,” the federal officials noted, adding that the Justice Department would also examine Peters’ prosecution to determine if it was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”

Following months of hearings, a federal judge in Denver on Monday denied Peters’ request for release.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who holds sole authority to pardon Peters, defended her conviction after Trump’s announcement on Thursday. 

“No President has jurisdiction over state law or the power to pardon someone for state convictions. This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will adhere to court orders,” Polis stated.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser struck a similar note, emphasizing the state’s authority over the case and dismissing Trump’s attempt to pardon Peters as an “outrageous departure” from the Constitution. 

“One of the most fundamental principles of our constitution is that states have independent sovereignty and manage their own criminal justice systems without federal interference,” Weiser said. “The notion that a president could pardon someone tried and convicted in state court has no precedent in American law, would flagrantly violate constitutional requirements, and will not stand.”

Days before the federal judge rejected Peters’ bid for release from prison, an attorney for Peters sent a letter to Trump arguing for the President to grant her a pardon and asserting he has the power to do so. 

The lawyer, Peter Ticktin, claimed Peters was “innocent and wrongfully persecuted” and noted she had received death threats in prison from “violent offenders” and been attacked three times. Ticktin acknowledged in the letter that “the question of whether a president can pardon for state offenses has never been raised in any court” but argued that the constitutional clause establishing the President’s clemency authority—which states “he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment”—confers “the power to grant a pardon in any of the states of the United States.”

Trump has continued to falsely claim the 2020 election, in which he lost to former President Joe Biden, was stolen from him, and has previously offered clemency to others who acted on those claims. On the first day of his second term, he pardoned nearly all 1,600 people charged in connection with the , attack on the Capitol.

Yet those charges were federal. Peters’ case, by contrast, falls outside Trump’s official authority.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers for state crimes in a state court,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement on Thursday. “Trump has no constitutional authority to pardon her. His actions are an assault not only on our democracy but on states’ rights and the American constitution.”