Sirius XM host Megyn Kelly on Friday asked Republican Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis if he would pardon former President Donald Trump if elected.
The former president is entangled in legal battles as he awaits a third indictment relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump faces two other indictments involving his former attorney allegedly paying hush money to former porn actress Stormy Daniels and for his alleged mishandling of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago home.
“Given your views on the weaponization of government, would you commit to pardoning [Trump] on any federal charges against him?” Kelly asked DeSantis.
“Well, what I’ve said is very simple: I’m gonna do what’s right for the country,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think it would be good for the country to have an almost-80-year-old former president go to prison.”
“So that’s a yes,” Kelly pushed.
“It just doesn’t seem like it would be a very good thing,” DeSantis continued. “And I look at Ford, who pardoned Nixon, and took some heat for it, but at the end of the day it’s like, do we want to move forward as a country, or do we want to be mired in these past controversies? And I think the public wants a fresh start, I think they want somebody that’s going to focus on their issues. We’ve had a lot that’s happened over the last five or six years. I get that, but going forward, we got all these issues that we’ve gotta deal with.”
DeSantis vowed to “wield the pardon power” for “normal” Americans believed to be targeted unfairly and hold those in “the Swamp,” or D.C., accountable. He accused President Joe Biden’s administration of “weaponizing” the Department of Justice and the FBI to target their political opponents. (RELATED: DeSantis Reacts To Trump Target Letter)
Trump received a “target letter” from Special Counsel Jack Smith in mid-July, informing him of the investigation into his alleged role in the Capitol riot. The three statutes cited in the target letter include “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under a civil rights statute, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant,” ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
The former president also faces a possible third indictment over an ongoing investigation into his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
DeSantis has publicly opposed Trump’s indictments, accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office and the federal government of politically targeting the former president. He announced Florida would not be involved in the extradition process of Trump during the latter’s first indictment by Bragg’s office.