On December 12, 2025, former President Donald Trump ignited a national debate by announcing a full pardon for Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk in Colorado convicted of election interference. Trump’s declaration, made on his social media platform Truth Social, was as dramatic as it was controversial: “Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” he proclaimed. But the announcement quickly ran into a brick wall of constitutional limits, revealing just how tangled the web of presidential power and state sovereignty can get in the United States.
Tina Peters, once a local Republican official, found herself at the center of a storm after she was convicted on state charges for her role in a scheme aimed at supporting Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The Colorado courts sentenced her to nine years in prison, marking her as the only Trump ally currently incarcerated in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 results. The case became a lightning rod for debates about election integrity, state authority, and the reach of presidential clemency.
Trump’s pardon, however, is largely symbolic. As KKTV and cpr.org both report, the United States Constitution grants the president the power to pardon only “offenses against the United States”—that is, federal crimes. State convictions, such as those faced by Peters, fall entirely outside presidential jurisdiction. According to former Deputy District Attorney Eric Faddis, “It’s just not something that Trump has the legal authority to do.” The annotation on the government’s own Constitution Annotated website backs this up, stating unequivocally: “State criminal offenses and federal or state civil claims are not covered.”
Colorado officials were swift and unequivocal in their response. Governor Jared Polis, the only person with the authority to pardon state crimes in Colorado, declared, “No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions. This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser echoed this, calling Trump’s effort “an outrageous departure from what our constitution requires, and will not hold up.” Secretary of State Jena Griswold was even more blunt: “Trump has no constitutional authority to pardon her. His assault is not just on our democracy, but on states’ rights and the American constitution.”
Yet, Peters’ defense team is not backing down. Her attorney, Peter Ticktin, insists that the president’s pardon power should be interpreted more broadly. “When the president was given the pardon power for offenses against the United States, it was for offenses against any of the United States,” Ticktin argued, suggesting that the constitutional language could be read to include state crimes. He pointed to the use of “the United States” in other constitutional contexts, such as the 13th Amendment, as evidence that the framers did not mean to limit the president’s authority to federal crimes alone. Ticktin admitted, however, that “the question of whether a president can pardon for state offenses has never been raised in any court.”
Legal scholars, prosecutors, and constitutional experts remain unconvinced. Dan Rubenstein, the district attorney in the county where Peters was convicted, dismissed Trump’s pardon as “more symbolic than anything, holding no legal weight.” He added, “It won’t have any effect on her sentence. The executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections will likely refuse, or will surely refuse to release her without any court order from a state or federal court.”
Despite the legal consensus, Peters’ legal team is pushing for higher review. Ticktin has called on Governor Polis to grant clemency, arguing that “this is not a dangerous person where she’s going to hurt anybody. And since there’s a valid question, you know, because we don’t know the answer. I don’t know how the Supreme Court is ultimately going to resolve this.” He’s prepared to take the battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if Colorado’s courts rule against Peters. “This is the kind of issue that they should take, for sure,” he said.
Meanwhile, the federal government has taken an unusual interest in Peters’ case. Senior Justice Department officials previously encouraged a federal judge to “give prompt and careful consideration” to releasing Peters from state prison after she filed a federal lawsuit alleging constitutional violations and seeking bond during her appeal. The Justice Department even promised to review whether her prosecution was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.” Despite these interventions, a federal judge in Denver denied Peters’ request for release on December 8, 2025.
The legal tussle over Peters’ fate is more than a local squabble; it’s a proxy for larger constitutional questions. The United States has always balanced federal and state authority in a delicate dance. Presidential pardons have been a powerful tool for centuries, but their reach stops at the state line. As cpr.org notes, Peters’ case “exemplifies the importance of state authority in addressing election integrity,” and Trump’s symbolic gesture “emphasizes the ongoing friction in state vs federal authority.”
The debate is not entirely academic. Trump’s history of granting clemency to allies—most notably his sweeping federal pardons for those charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot—has already tested the boundaries of executive power. But those cases were federal; Peters’ is not. As legal analyst Eric Faddis pointed out, “The authority to pardon a state crime would rest with the governor of Colorado, not the president of the United States.”
For many, the case is a reminder of the enduring strength of state sovereignty in America’s legal system. As Attorney General Weiser put it, “One of the most basic principles of our constitution is that states have independent sovereignty and manage our own criminal justice systems without interference from the federal government.” The U.S. Supreme Court may yet weigh in, but for now, the constitutional boundaries remain clear, and Tina Peters remains behind bars.
Trump’s announcement has fueled calls for legislative reforms to clarify the limits of presidential power and safeguard state judicial independence. Legal experts continue to stress the importance of respecting constitutional limitations and the autonomy of state legal systems. Whether this moment leads to lasting change or fades as another episode in America’s ongoing tug-of-war between state and federal authority, it’s a vivid illustration of the complexity—and the resilience—of the country’s constitutional framework.
