Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said Thursday on a CNN town hall in Henniker, NH that former President Donald Trump’s criminal cases should “play out” before she would pardon him if she is elected president.
Anchor Jake Tapper asked, “On accountability, if you become president and Donald Trump’s trials are still ongoing, would you preemptively pardon him without waiting for a conviction the way that Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon?”
Haley said, “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. You know, you only want to talk about a pardon after someone has been convicted, so I would assume that we’d let that play out and I would think he would want that to play out.”
Tapper said, “If he were convicted, would you then pardon him?”
Haley said, “I said I would pardon him with the simple reason of, you know, when you talk about a pardon, someone’s already been found guilty, 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.”
She added, “This is no longer about whether he’s innocent or guilty, 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.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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