Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has vowed to pardon former US President Donald Trump should she defeat him in the Republican Primary and win against Joe Biden in November. Speaking at a town hall in South Carolina on Sunday (18 February), Haley confirmed that if the former president is found guilty, she would pardon him to unify America. She said: “We’ve got to leave the negativity and the baggage behind. I don’t want this country divided any further. I don’t think it’s in the best interest for America to have an 80-year-old president sitting in jail and having everybody upset about it.” Trump faces several court cases related to election interference, the January 6 riots, and falsifying business records.
So… She’s admitting he broke the law?
A pardon is essentially that. But only literally in the case of a conviction. You can issue blanket pardons which basically say “if you did something, you are pardoned”. These do not have the direct acknowledgement of guilt but it’s obviously heavily implied.
These don’t side-step prosecution though, just the sentence if found guilty, correct?
Well don’t think there’s a point prosecuting someone (i.e. spending insane amounts of taxpayer money) if, in the end, you achieve “nothing”, in terms of punishment.
There might still be indirect punishment in terms of a hit to public image but eh
I feel like in a high profile case like this the prosecutor would still want to prosecute. If for nothing more than to help make a name for themselves. Of course it’s likely that some funding for such a trial would be taken away after the pardon was issued. It would be an interesting states rights issue though. Can a president pardon someone for a state level crime? I think the consensus is no, but I’m not a lawyer so I wouldn’t really know.
The governor of said state pardons for state crimes