President Donald Trump announced on social media Thursday that he is pardoning convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. Peters was convicted on Colorado state charges, and under current law, presidential pardons don’t apply to state convictions. In a Truth Social post, Trump said, “ Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” Peters is behind bars at the Colorado Department of Corrections, serving a nine-year prison sentence that stems from an election rigging conspiracy theory scheme. She was convicted of several felonies for allowing fellow election deniers access to local voting systems in search of voter fraud in the 2020 election, repeating Trump’s debunked claims. Last week, a federal appeals court denied Peters’ request for release from prison, while her attorney submitted a pardon request to Trump, despite the fact that presidential pardons do not apply to state convictions. In November, the administration sent a letter to the Colorado prison system asking that Peters be transferred to federal custody. A Department of Corrections spokesperson told Gazette and Denver Gazette news partner 9NEWS that the state believes a transfer request is only initiated by the state, not by the federal government. As a result, the state did not plan to respond to the request to pull Peters out of prison in Colorado. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis resisted calls to pardon Peters’ felony convictions, and he was urged not to release Peters to federal custody by a bipartisan coalition of county election clerks. Republican Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, who led the prosecution in Peters’ case, told 9NEWS on Thursday he does not believe the president has the authority to pardon Peters. “Ultimately, it will be up to the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections to determine whether or not to give any effect to that order, and inevitably it will end up in the courts,” Rubinstein said. “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,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said. “The idea that a president could pardon someone tried and convicted in state court has no precedent in American law, would be an outrageous departure from what our constitution requires, and will not hold up.” The Gazette contributed to this story. ...read more read less