GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said on Jan. 18 that she would not preemptively pardon former President Donald Trump.
During a town hall at New England College in New Hampshire–five days before the first-in-the-nation primary–Jake Tapper of CNN, serving as moderator, asked the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if she would, as president, pardon President Trump if his legal cases were still ongoing.
Mr. Tapper noted that President Gerald Ford preemptively pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who had not been charged with a crime but resigned from office due to the Watergate scandal.
“No. I think everything needs to play out. I think it’s important that that happens. And I honestly think President Trump would want that to happen. If he wants to defend himself and prove that he has been treated, you know, the wrong way, or whether it’s political, I think he would want to fight for that,” she said.
“You know, you only want to talk about a pardon after someone has been convicted,” continued Ms. Haley. “So I would assume that we'd let that play out. And I would think he would want that to play out.”
Ms. Haley reiterated her pledge to pardon him should he be convicted.
“I would pardon him, with the simple reason of, you know, when you talk about a pardon, someone’s already been found guilty,” she said.
“But for me, the last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail, because that’s just going to further divide our country. This is no longer about whether he’s innocent or guilty,” continued Ms. Haley. “This is about the fact, how do we bring the country back together? And I am determined to make sure all of this division, all of this chaos goes away. And I think a pardon for him would make all of that go away, and I think it would be healing for the country.”
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 contained 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 with 13 counts including first-degree conspiracy to commit forgery, racketeering, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, and soliciting a public officer to violate his oath.
