Former President Donald Trump speaks during the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro, N.C., Saturday, June 10, 2023. ((AP Photo/George Walker IV, File))
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Will Trump receive a get out of jail free card
The federal indictment of Donald Trump – the first federal indictment of a former president in U.S. history – poses the question. Trump’s enraged reaction – calling it the “greatest witch hunt of all time” and denouncing special counsel Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, as a “deranged lunatic” – makes the question unavoidable. Obviously, Trump deserves a fair trial, his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of his peers. But every candidate for president should be asked if they would pardon Donald Trump if they were president. As Gerald Ford proved when pardoning Richard Nixon, a presidential pardon can be issued before a trial, or even before formal charges are brought, so the question needn’t wait on the trial.
