Ramaswamy: I Would Pardon Trump — ‘Clearly a Politicized Persecution’

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he would pardon former President Donald Trump if he became president.

Ramaswamy was asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday if he would consider pardoning Trump given “significant new information” about his indictment by special counsel Jack Smith.

“Let’s move on now to federal prosecutors added new obstruction of justice charges against former President Donald Trump on Thursday,” guest host Kasie Hunt began. “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 answered, “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?”

“I would pardon him,” he continued. “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 replied, “I think it is the definition of 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,” he said.

Ramaswamy has been one of the only GOP candidates to forcefully criticize the Democrats’ political targeting of Trump using weaponized government.

He was also the only GOP candidate to show up in Miami to express his solidarity with Trump as he was handed his first indictment by special counsel Jack Smith over his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.