Joe Biden should do the "unthinkable" and pardon President Donald Trump if he really wants to fulfill his promise of unifying the nation, Michael Conway, counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the impeachment process against former President Richard Nixon, says in a new column.
"His pardon could not be justified based on his innocence or his contrition because Trump is not contrite," writes Conway in the opinion piece for NBC News. "To the contrary, he is currently endangering our democratic processes by relentlessly undermining the legitimacy of Biden’s election and thwarting a peaceful transition."
Biden has already said a pardon won't happen if he occupies the Oval Office, but there are still good reasons to pardon Trump, mainly because that means if Trump accepts a pardon, that admits he's guilty of criminal activity, said Conway.
"Pardoning him may be the only way that Trump even implicitly concedes he did anything wrong," said Conway.
However, even a pardon won't keep Trump from potentially facing criminal charges, nor would it keep Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance from investigating and potentially prosecuting him and his corporation, said Conway.
That would also mean that Biden, if his election is confirmed, would not face the prospect of his own appointees investigating Trump and face condemnation of promoting a vendetta against a political rival.
Pardoning Trump would also mean Biden could avoid the anger of the 73 million people who voted to reelect him and who would be as angry as Democrats were over Trump's call to jail former opponents.
Biden would still face scathing criticism for pardoning Trump, just as happened when Nixon was pardoned, but the move would be intended to heal the country rather than keep an ongoing cycle of retribution that could last for years, Conway also wrote.
"Nixon did not deserve that pardon and, despite rumors to the contrary, [Gerald] Ford never promised Nixon a pardon to induce him to resign," said Conway. "Biden’s pardon of Trump would be even more courageous than Ford’s action."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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