US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was “granting” a pardon to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county elections official jailed over efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — despite having no authority to do so.
Gatekeepers News reports that Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, was sentenced in October 2024 to nine years in prison after she allowed an unauthorized Trump supporter to access confidential voting system data months after Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 election. The individual sought evidence to support Trump’s false claims that the vote had been rigged.
In a post on social media Thursday, Trump accused Democrats of persecuting Peters, calling her “a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest.”
“I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” he wrote.
However, Peters was convicted on state charges — which means a president cannot legally pardon her. Only state authorities can issue such a pardon.
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, pushed back immediately, noting that 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.”
“No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions,” Polis said on social media. “This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”
The declaration marks yet another expansive use of Trump’s pardon rhetoric since returning to office. Shortly after his inauguration in January, he offered pardons to all those convicted over the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court last week allowed Texas to implement its newly redrawn congressional map for the 2026 midterm elections — a ruling that bolsters Republican hopes of maintaining control of the House of Representatives. The map, drawn at Trump’s urging, creates five additional GOP-leaning districts and has inspired similar redistricting pushes in other states.
The conservative-majority court’s order stayed a lower court ruling that found the map “unconstitutionally” sorted voters based on race.
“Texas needs certainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elections, so I will not delay the Court’s order,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a concurring opinion.
All three liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan wrote that after a nine-day hearing, the district court concluded that “Texas largely divided its citizens along racial lines to create its new pro-Republican House map.”
Though technically a temporary stay, the decision effectively ensures that the Republican-favored map will be used in the 2026 midterms, with the candidate filing deadline in Texas just days away.
