December 12, 2025 10:13 AM UTC

Trump Pardons Tina Peters (But Not Really)

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• by: Colorado Pols

President Trump is really feeling the Holiday season in 2025.

A few weeks after symbolically pardoning a couple of turkeys in the annual pre-Thanksgiving event at the White House, Trump did it again on Thursday night.

As Nick Coltrain reports for The Denver Post:

President Donald Trump claimed to grant former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters a “full pardon” Thursday night — a power that constitutional law experts say he cannot wield for a person convicted of state-level crimes.

Peters, 70, is serving a nine-year sentence in state prison in Pueblo for felonies related to providing unauthorized access to voting equipment when she was the elected clerk and recorder of Mesa County. She had worked with prominent election deniers in an attempt to prove discredited claims that voting machines were manipulated, and she’s been a prominent supporter of Trump’s debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

On Thursday evening, Trump posted to his Truth Social account that “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.”

There are a few problems with this claim from President Trump.

First, it is not clear that Trump has actually signed an official pardon or just granted Peters a “Turkey Pardon”, which is about as functionally-useful as declaring on social media that you think paying taxes is unjust. As of this writing, there is no official pardon for Peters listed on the Department of Justice website.

It makes sense that there is no official pardon document for Peters because TRUMP HAS NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO DO THIS. As Coltrain continues for the Post:

Trump, however, can grant pardons only for federal crimes — not those committed against the state, as Peters was convicted of.

“Trump has the constitutional power to pardon people for crimes against the United States,” Jessica Smith, a Denver-based attorney with the firm Holland and Hart, said of Trump’s post. “Peters was convicted of crimes against Colorado. To suggest he can pardon for state crimes would upend fundamental principles of federalism.”…

…Doug Spencer, a constitutional law professor at the University of Colorado, echoed Smith in reacting to Trump’s attempted pardon — and warned that his post may send a dangerous message. He called it “sad that our president hasn’t read or doesn’t understand a basic tenet of the U.S. Constitution.”

“This post carries no legal weight,” Spencer said. “It is a political stunt. And a dangerous one — because it may lead others to believe that he has some power over her case, and that those individuals involved in her case in Colorado have acted inappropriately or illegally, for which there is absolutely no evidence.” [Pols emphasis]

We’re not going to pretend that following laws is something that Trump cares about in general, but it seems pretty clear that Presidents have no ability to interfere with convictions in state or local courts. As we noted earlier this week, Peters’ lawyer, Peter Tiktin, is arguing that Trump does have that ability depending on how you think about pronouns when pondering the phrase “The United States of America” (seriously, that’s really Tiktin’s argument). Either Tiktin is one of the most brilliant legal minds in America who has stumbled upon an argument that no other legal professional has considered in 250 years…or this is complete nonsense. If you’d like to place a bet on the former, we’d be happy to take that action.

The American legal system has largely been holding the line against Trump’s demands for revenge against his political enemies (efforts to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegations of mortgage fraud have now failed three times after a Thursday ruling in Virginia). We would expect the same resistance here. If Trump’s “Turkey Pardon” of Peters were somehow allowed to move forward, it would overturn a legal precedent that has basically been unchallenged for…well, since a bunch of old guys in funny wigs got together in Philadelphia at the end of the 18th Century.

Peters is exactly where she belongs after being convicted by a jury of her peers in beet-red Mesa County. Trump will remain big mad that he can’t spring her from a Colorado prison. That’s fine. He can issue her a “Turkey Pardon” once a week if it makes him feel better.

Given Trump’s obvious cognitive decline, perhaps the best solution would be for someone in the White House to just tell him that Peters has been freed so that we can all move on to more important things.