Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday doubled down on his promise to pardon former President Trump if Trump is convicted and the conservative entrepreneur is elected in 2024.
“Given everything that you’ve seen, do you stand by your promise to pardon him if he’s convicted?” host Dana Bash asked Ramaswamy on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Reading that indictment and looking at the selective omissions of both facts and law, … I’m even more convinced that a pardon is the right answer here,” he replied.
Trump has been charged with 37 counts in relation to the former president’s alleged mishandled of classified records at Mar-a-Lago as well as his alleged efforts to block the government from recovering the materials, according to the indictment unsealed by the Justice Department.
Shortly after Trump announced his attorneys had been informed of an indictment last week, Ramaswamy had promised “to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country.”
“Just on principle, do you think it would be a mistake for the Republican Party to nominate somebody who is facing serious federal criminal charges?” Bash asked Ramswamy on Sunday.
“Look, I’m in this race to win this race, because I think we need to move forward as a country. I think we go forward with the agenda, if we’re grounded in first principles and moral authority. That’s why I’m in this race. But that’s not for you or I or certainly the federal administrative police state to decide. That’s for the people of this country to decide,” Ramswamy answered.
“Federal administrative police state? That’s pretty strong,” Bash pressed.
“That’s exactly what’s at work here, right. You have a federal administrative state, the police arm of that state is for the first time in U.S. history, not only indicting a former president, but indicting currently a lead candidate against the U.S. president,” Ramaswamy argued.
–Updated at 10:40 a.m.