President Donald Trump said late on Dec. 11 that he had issued a pardon for Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk convicted of orchestrating a scheme to breach secure election equipment, though Colorado officials and legal experts immediately countered that the president’s broad pardon powers don’t extend to state-level crimes like those committed by Peters.

The 70-year-old Peters, who was found guilty last year by a Mesa County jury on seven state charges — including four felonies — for tampering with her county’s voting equipment, has served just over one year of her nine-year prison sentence.

Her convictions included counts that involved permitting a man associated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to access election system software she oversaw using falsified identification and then lying about it. Lindell has been among the leading promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

“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 posted on social media.

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

Colorado’s Democratic statewide elected officials — and the local Republican district attorney who prosecuted Peters — brushed off Trump’s statement and reiterated that the president lacks any authority to pardon Peters, a fellow Republican.

At the same time, an assortment of Republicans and GOP-aligned figures said they hoped Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who does have the power to pardon Peters, would heed Trump’s directive.

Polis demurred, saying in a statement posted to social media that he will let the courts decide Peters’ fate.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney, and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation,” Polis said. “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.”

Earlier this week, a federal judge rejected Peters’ petition to be released while her appeal is heard in state courts.

Legal experts, including the American Bar Association, agree that the presidential pardon power only applies to federal offenses, but one of Peters’ attorneys said earlier this week that his client’s pardon is the first step in a plan to test that proposition.

Late last month, Peter Ticktin, the Peters attorney who filed the pardon request granted this week by Trump, said on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s podcast that he “would love to see” the president send in the 101st Airborne Division to spring Peters from prison.

Ticktin told Bannon in a Dec. 8 appearance on the latter’s “Steve Bannon’s War Room” podcast that he intends to appeal the state’s anticipated refusal to comply with the pardon “all the way” to the Supreme Court under a novel theory that the president can pardon state crimes.

“That’s never been adjudicated at the Supreme Court,” Ticktin said, adding that he’s hopeful the high court will rule in his client’s favor “because there, we’ve got a majority that are fundamentalists.”

Although Peters initially maintained she’d only been concerned about the results of a recent municipal election in the Western Slope county — not the 2020 presidential contest — her prosecution quickly turned her into a cause célèbre among Trump supporters and others who insist widespread election fraud led to Joe Biden’s election, despite the absence of evidence of any irregularities that would have swung the results.

Trump’s pardon — characterized as “symbolic” by the Associated Press — is the latest in a series of attempts by the Trump administration to release Peters from the state prison system, including the Department of Justice’s becoming involved in her case in March amid a review over whether her prosecution amounted to “inflicting political pain” instead of pursuing justice.

Trump demanded in May that Colorado officials “FREE TINA PETERS NOW!,” calling her an “innocent Political Prisoner” and a “hostage” in a social media post that said he was directing the Justice Department to “take all necessary action” to secure her release.

In November, the Federal Bureau of Prisons asked its Colorado counterpart to transfer Peters to federal custody, but state officials denied the request.

“President Trump is now saying he’s going to pardon Tina Peters. He has no authority to do that” said Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat seeking his party’s nomination for governor, in a video posted to social media. “It’s a basic principle of our Constitution that states run their criminal justice systems. We’re doing that in Colorado. He can’t tell us what to do.”

Added Weiser in a statement: “”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 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.”

Colorado’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, made similar points in social media posts after Trump declared he had pardoned Peters.

“Tina Peters is rightfully in Colorado state prison. Trump’s corrupt and political attempts at a pardon won’t work here. Once again, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime,” said U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running against Weiser in next year’s gubernatorial primary.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper posted a succinct reply to Trump’s lengthy remarks announcing the pardon: “Look! Felons helping felons.”

State Rep. Scott Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, one of more than two dozen Republican candidates for governor, reacted to news of the pardon in a video on social media.

“We know this is on the federal level, so Gov. Polis, I’m telling you, you have an opportunity here,” Bottoms said. “Do the right thing, separate yourself from Secretary of State (Jena) Griswold and Attorney General Weiser, and pardon Tina. Let her go before Christmas. It’s the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, the state’s two major political parties took opposing views.

“We trust the President has done his due diligence in this matter in the name of justice,” Colorado GOP Chair Brita Horn told Colorado Politics in a statement via text message. “We call upon Colorado to follow the direction of President Trump and this pardon.”

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib called the pardon “meaningless” in a statement.

“We’re not surprised by President Trump shouting into the wind and issuing a meaningless pardon for his friend and fellow election denier Tina Peters. The President has no legal authority to demand her release,” Murib said. “For a president who obviously doesn’t respect the rule of law, this is not surprising. Nobody is above the law, not even the president’s friends.”