Nikki Haley says she would pardon Trump if elected president

‘What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail, that continues to divide our country,’ the former UN ambassador said

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced that she would pardon former president Donald Trump if she makes it to the White House in 2024 and if he were convicted of any of the many crimes he’s accused of committing.

At a New Hampshire campaign event, Ms Haley told the crowd, “I would pardon Trump if he is found guilty.”

“A leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country,” the former South Carolina governor continued. “What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail, that continues to divide our country.”

She added, “What’s in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him, so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”

Mr Trump faces 91 criminal counts across several cases.

He faces RICO charges for alleged election subversion efforts in Georgia, counts of falsifying business records charges in the hush-money case in New York, and charges in two federal cases — one for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and one for his alleged retention of classified documents.

However, it’s worth noting that presidential pardons only apply to federal criminal convictions — not to state criminal convictions.

Still, Mr Trump is the prominent frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Ms Haley has been encroaching on his lead in recent weeks, according to December polls in New Hampshire.

A CBS/YouGov poll showed that 29 per cent of potential Republican primary voters in the state said they would vote for Ms Haley compared to 44 per cent who said they would for Mr Trump.

An American Research Group poll showed an even smaller gap between the two candidates: 33 per cent of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters said they would support the former president while 29 per cent support Ms Haley.

Although he didn’t explicitly say he would pardon Mr Trump, fellow 2024 GOP candidate Ron DeSantis also indicated he would do so if he were elected. He said in July, “I’m going to do what’s right for the country. I don’t think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison. It doesn’t seem like it would be a good thing.”

Meanwhile, 2024 hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy was more direct, saying he would pardon the former president on “day one.”

Former New Jersey Gov Chris Christie took a different approach. He explained in July, “To get a pardon, you have to also accept responsibility for what you did...I doubt very highly that Donald Trump would ever do that. And so I can’t imagine a pardon being issued.”