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Ordinarily, candidates for the nation’s highest office don’t have to deal with questions about whether they’d issue pardons for one of their rivals. That’s generally because, as a rule, those charged with multiple felonies don’t seek the presidency.
And yet, the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination is already proving to be rather odd.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson became the latest GOP contender to address the issue, as host Margaret Brennan asked him whether Trump should be pardoned “for the good of the country.” After noting that the former president hasn’t yet been convicted of anything, making the line of inquiry premature, Hutchinson added, “I think that anybody who promises pardons during the presidential campaign is not serving our system of justice well and it’s inappropriate.”
His assessment was accurate, but that doesn't mean it's been widely embraced by others in the crowded Republican field. The Washington Post reported on the latest rhetoric from Vivek Ramaswamy, which came at roughly the same time as Hutchinson’s comments.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that if elected, he would still pardon Donald Trump despite a new indictment charging the former president with additional crimes related to his alleged hoarding and hiding of classified documents. “I would pardon him,” Ramaswamy, a technology entrepreneur, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
As part of the same CNN interview, Ramaswamy downplayed the importance of alleged destruction of evidence — the candidate called it a “process crime” — before claiming that pardoning Trump would be a way to “put the grievances of the past behind us.”
As for the rest of the Republican field, there are nearly as many positions as there are competitive candidates.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has now said more than once that he’s prepared to pardon Trump, claiming such a move could help Americans “come together.” On a related note, there is no reason whatsoever to think freeing an unpopular suspected felon of any kind of legal accountability would help Americans “come together.”
Former Ambassador Nikki Haley is clearly open to a Trump pardon, though true to form, she’s struggled to give an explicit answer. “What I’ve said is if he is found guilty, that is certainly showing that it was dangerous to our national security,” the South Carolina Republican also said on “Face the Nation.”
Haley added, “But I’ll take you back to Nixon and Ford. I mean, I think that one of the things we have to look at is not what’s in the best interest of, you know, the president, but what’s in the best interests of the country. ... We have to move forward. We’ve got to quit living in the past. And I don’t want there to be all of this division over the fact that we have a president serving years in jail over a documents trial. I want all of this to go away.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said earlier this month that he “can’t imagine“ pardoning Trump.
Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas has been the most categorical of all the GOP contenders, declaring, “No, I would not pardon him.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina have both balked at questions they described as “hypotheticals.” Similarly, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said last month, “Would you pardon them in 2025? As a governor, I would never make that commitment. I wouldn’t make that commitment right now. Because it just it wouldn’t make any sense.”
As for Trump himself, it’s all but certain that the former president, if he were to return to the White House, would be eager to exonerate himself.
Looking ahead, it seems likely these questions will persist, especially as the former president’s legal difficulties intensify. What none of these candidates have addressed, however, is what they might try to do about state charges, which can’t be addressed through the pardon power.