Tina Peters, the disgraced former Mesa County clerk who became a martyr of the MAGA election-denial movement, won’t be getting any closer to a presidential pardon. Colorado officials confirmed this week that she will not be transferred to a federal prison—despite public boasting from a Trump-aligned Justice Department official who claimed he pressured the state to hand her over.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Corrections shut the door on that idea, stressing that transfers must originate from the state, not Washington. “The Department is not currently seeking any transfer,” Alondra Gonzalez told Denver’s 9News, ending the speculation that Peters might be moved into Trump’s reach.

Peters is serving a nine-year sentence after a jury convicted her of multiple felonies for allowing pro-Trump operatives unauthorized access to Mesa County’s voting equipment—part of a doomed attempt to validate conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Her case became a MAGA cause célèbre, with Trump repeatedly labeling her a “hostage.”

But none of that matters while she’s in state custody. A president cannot pardon state convictions.

That didn’t stop DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin from suggesting otherwise. Appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast, Martin bragged that he put “the right kind of pressure” on Colorado officials to push Peters into federal hands. “If the feds say we want something, you change your tune,” he said confidently.

Colorado immediately signaled the opposite.

The refusal leaves Peters right where she is: locked inside a state facility, far from Trump’s pardon pen and even farther from the political movement she once helped fuel. And for all the talk of federal influence, the only tune Colorado appears to be singing is no.