NEWS
Trump Says It’s ‘Unlikely’ He’d Pardon Himself If Elected Again
Courtesy of realdonaldtrump/Instagram
Former President Donald Trump said in a Thursday interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that if he wins the 2024 presidential election, it is “very unlikely” he would pardon himself in the event he is convicted of any of the charges he is currently facing.
The Thursday interview with the “Meet The Press” moderator is scheduled to air Sunday on NBC affiliates nationwide.
I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said. “You mean because I challenge an election, they want to put me in jail?”
Trump, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is facing more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments, including a federal case regarding his possession of classified documents, a New York case regarding a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, and a Georgia case on election interference. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
“People said, ‘Would you like to pardon yourself?’ I had a couple of attorneys that said, ‘You can do it if you want,'” Trump told Welker during the interview at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. “I had some people that said, ‘It would look bad if you do it, because I think it would look terrible.'”
Trump also said that on the last day of his term in the White House, he “could have had a pardon done that would have saved me all of these lawyers and all of this — these fake charges, these Biden indictments.”
The interview also touched on the indictment this week against Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, on felony gun charges. Trump said the indictment does nothing to change his view that there are two systems of justice at work.
“There’s no question about it,” Trump said. “He had a plea deal that was the deal of the century. The art of the deal — you could write a book on it.”
The indictment came after a plea deal with federal prosecutors that would have allowed Hunter Biden to avoid jail time on the gun charges in exchange for pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses fell apart in July. The charges are the result of a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances and personal life, and how they relate to the Biden family’s wider business dealings.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he is launching an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, on allegations of “abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption” related to the family’s business dealings, including Hunter’s work on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
TMX contributed to this article.
