Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy clashed with CNN host Dana Bash over his promise to pardon former President Donald Trump Sunday.
“Reading that indictment and looking at the selective omissions of both fact and law, Dana, I’m even more convinced that a pardon is the right answer here,” Ramaswamy told Bash on “State of the Union With Jake Tapper and Dana Bash” Sunday when asked if he stood by his promise to pardon Trump if he was convicted on charges related to his handling of classified documents. (RELATED: ‘I’m Very Upset About It’: Geraldo Rivera Goes Ballistic Over DOJ Indicting Trump)
“This is selective prosecution. I think it is irresponsible not to have included any treatment of those facts or law in this indictment,” Ramaswamy added, saying the media should question President Joe Biden about potential involvement in the indictment of Trump, who holds a significant lead over his competitors for the Republican nomination for president, according to the RealClearPolitics average. “It reeks of politicization which is why I want to go back to the top question the media actually should be asking: ‘What did Biden tell Garland? What did Garland tell Jack Smith?’ That is what you need to get to the bottom of.”
WATCH:
Trump announced Thursday on Truth Social that his attorneys had been told he was being indicted as the result of an investigation into classified documents that were the subject of an Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate he owns. Ramaswamy stated that he would pardon Trump in a post on Twitter Thursday evening.
The Justice Department unsealed the indictment Friday, which charged Trump on 37 counts in relation to retaining records, as well as making false statements, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
“What would you have done differently?” Bash asked Ramaswamy after the former biotech executive said Trump made bad judgments involving the records.
“I would not have taken those documents with me and I would have returned them on demand, because that would actually have set up for a much more constructive discussion,” Ramaswamy told Bash. “But there is a difference between a bad judgment and breaking the law, and when especially the federal police apparatus conflates the two, that’s a threat to liberty for everyone, not just President Trump, but every American where every misjudgment is treated as a violation of law.”
Ramaswamy then confronted Bash after she said there was no evidence that President Joe Biden influenced the investigation, claiming the media was applying a double standard of scrutiny.
“There is absolutely no evidence unless you can show me that President Biden had anything to do with this prosecution. That is why he put two layers in between,” Bash told Ramaswamy.
“I think it is shameful I, as a competitor to President Trump in this race, have to ask questions that the media isn’t asking,” Ramaswamy told Bash. “The job of the political media, if it has one job, is to hold the U.S. government accountable.”
“You’re seeing the media do the bidding of the U.S. government,” Ramaswamy added. “Ask the question, get to the bottom of what Biden told Garland and what Garland told Jack Smith. If the same shoe were on the other foot, you would not take their word at face value.”
Bash claimed that CNN did work to hold the government accountable.
“We know how to be good journalists because we do it every single day,” the CNN host said.
Ramaswamy did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether he would pardon or prosecute Biden over the multiple discoveries of classified material at his Delaware home and at an office once used by the Penn Biden Center.
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