GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she would pardon former President Donald Trump if he is convicted.
During a Dec. 28 town hall in New Hampshire, just weeks until the Iowa Caucus and just under a month until the first-in-the-nation primary, a 9-year-old girl asked the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if she would pardon the former president, who dominates in the polls despite his legal woes.
“I would pardon Trump,” said Ms. Haley.
“If he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country,” she added. “What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail, that continues to divide our country. What’s in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”
President Trump has been indicted in Manhattan, Georgia, and two federal cases, totaling 91 charges. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
On March 30, a New York grand jury voted to indict President Trump on 34 counts over his alleged role in the payment of hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. With this prosecution, President Trump became the first former president in history to be indicted.
On June 9, Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted President Trump on 37 counts of allegedly mishandling classified information. A raid on President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 led to federal agents taking out boxes of classified information that were supposed to go to the National Archives after President Trump left office on Jan. 20, 2021. Some of these documents allegedly surrounded classified information related to foreign countries.
On Aug. 1, Mr. Smith indicted President Trump on four charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, disrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win and, therefore, the peaceful transfer of power. The charges include conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring to defraud the United States.
On Aug. 14, in Fulton County, Georgia, President Trump, along with 18 others, was indicted for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State, which President Biden won by 11,779 votes, or 0.23 percentage points. President Trump was charged on 13 counts ranging from first-degree conspiracy to commit forgery, racketeering, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, and soliciting a public officer to violate his oath.
Previously, Ms. Haley said she would pardon President Trump in the classified documents case.
“And I think it would be terrible for the country to have a former president in prison for years because of a documents case,” she said on radio.
“That’s something you’ve seen in a third-world country. I saw that at the United Nations,” she continued. “So I would be inclined in favor of a pardon. But I think it’s really premature at this point when he’s not even been convicted of anything.”
Ms. Haley’s latest comments about pardoning President Trump come as she has taken the heat for not initially acknowledging that slavery was the cause of the Civil War—in response to a question from an audience member at a Dec. 27 town hall in New Hampshire.
In her response, Ms. Haley omitted mentioning slavery as a primary catalyst, opting instead to focus on the role of government and individual freedoms.
Ms. Haley has since clarified her comments by noting that “of course, the Civil War was about slavery“ and that what she was trying to convey was: ”What does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about.”
