Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he would pardon former President Donald Trump if he became president.
Guest anchor Kasie Hunt asked, “Let’s move on now to federal prosecutors added new obstruction of justice charges against former President Donald Trump on Thursday. The indictment, the superseding indictment says that after Trump learned that the Justice Department wanted to subpoena security footage from Mar-a-Lago, Trump talked with an aide who later told the IT director that ‘The boss wanted the footage deleted.’ I know you’ve said repeatedly that you would pardon Trump in this documents case, but this is significant new information. Given this new information, would you still pardon him if you were president?”
Ramaswamy said, “The standard I use as our next president is what moves our country forward? What is the right thing for the United States of America?”
He continued, “I would pardon him. I intend to be our next president, and yes, I do believe I will move us forward. I believe one of the right ways to do that is pardon the former president of the United States from what is clearly a politicized persecution.”
I think that the general norm in our Justice Department is you should not convict somebody of a process crime when there was no actual underlying crime.”
Hunt asked, “So you think destroying evidence is a process crime?”
Ramaswamy said, “I think it is y definition a process crime. Nobody left, right, any legal scholar will agree with me on that statement. that is by definition a process crime. A crime that would not have existed but for the existence of an investigation.”
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