President Donald Trump on Thursday said he is “pardoning” Tina Peters, though that won’t free the former Colorado elections administrator as she was convicted under state laws of a security breach of her office’s voting equipment.

Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes like those for which Peters was convicted last year and sentenced to nine years in prison.

“Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest,” Trump said in a social media post.

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’” ‘ of demanding Honest Elections. Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” the president said.

A federal judge recently rejected Peters’ petition to be released from incarceration pending the resolution of her criminal appeal.

Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak wrote in a Dec. 8 order that Peters satisfied none of the criteria that permit federal courts to intervene in ongoing state criminal proceedings. Further, Peters was unable to point to a case in which a federal court found the defined limits on intervention did not apply in a scenario like hers, the judge said.

Peters previously asked the Court of Appeals to grant bond, but it denied her request.

In March, the U.S. Department of Justice unexpectedly inserted itself into the case, filing a statement of interest to claim it was reviewing whether Peters’ prosecution was “oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which litigated opposite Peters, asked Varholak to discard the statement entirely, or at least strike the portion alleging political motivations. The office argued to Varholak in April that it was unprecedented for the Justice Department to claim an interest in a state criminal defendant’s habeas case, and characterized the filing as an act of intimidation on behalf of an ally to the president.

Trump subsequently posted on social media that Peters was a “hostage.” Colorado’s Democratic attorney general and secretary of state rejected that characterization.

Although the Federal Bureau of Prisons sought to assume custody of Peters last month, the state indicated it would not transfer her.

Trump issued similar “pardons” last month for his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows and dozens of others charged in state courts with backing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Colorado Politics and the Associated Press contributed to this article.