NewsNation host Chris Cuomo and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Monday urged President Joe Biden to pardon President-elect Donald Trump.
Cuomo and Smith’s suggestion on “CUOMO” followed Biden pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday. Despite special counsel Jack Smith’s two federal cases against Trump no longer moving forward, the ESPN star expressed a belief that it would benefit the nation to fully move on from the president-elect’s legal troubles.
WATCH:
“You know what else Biden should do? And I know people gonna get upset about this, but just think about it before you crazy on me,” Cuomo said. “Not you — everybody else. If I were he, I would pardon Trump. I would pardon Trump. I would say this has got to stop.”
“You know something? Honestly, as crazy as this sounds, Chris, that’s exactly what I would do. That’s exactly what I would do. Enough’s enough. You know what? You’re the Democrats, you lost the election. You got your butt whipped,” Smith responded. “You couldn’t prevent him from going back to the White House. You know, more than a dozen cases have been dropped against him. The cases that have been ruled against him, he’s going to appeal, and he’ll probably get off from having to deal with all of that. It’s time to move forward.”
Smith also likened the potential move by Biden to pardon Trump to former President Gerald Ford pardoning former President Richard Nixon, saying that decision “was for the good of the country.”
MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg said on Nov. 25 that the special counsel’s move to dismiss his election interference case against Trump left open the “possibility” for later prosecution following his second term in office.
“In this motion, Jack Smith says that yes, ‘the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of immunity afforded to a sitting president, it doesn’t require dismissal with prejudice,’” Greenberg said. “And then goes on to say, ‘immunity from prosecution for sitting president would not preclude such prosecution once the president’s term is over or he is otherwise removed from office by [resignation] or impeachment.’ So there is a possibility here that potentially he could be prosecuted down the line.”
However, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner explained that Trump could evade ever facing prosecution by pardoning himself or making a deal for Vice President-elect JD Vance to pardon him.
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