Sen. Mitt Romney (aka Pierre Delecto, pictured at left; for explanation, go here) declared Biden “should have pardoned Donald Trump on all federal criminal charges the moment they were announced,” The Guardian reported (here) on May 15, 2024.
This should instantly strike you as anomalous (it did me), given he voted to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Romney is the guy who called 47% of Americans freeloaders. There are other reasons to question his gravitas, too. Although he did vote for removal when Trump was impeached for instigating the Capitol insurrection, that vote was (or should’ve been) a no-brainer, so it doesn’t earn extra credit.
Is there a hidden agenda here? Recently lawyers were debating whether the 14th Amendment barred Trump from office until the Supreme Court rescued him. Part of that debate was whether he had to be convicted of a crime first. Accepting a pardon implicitly admits guilt, so is Romney trying to set up Trump for taking another run at disqualification?
I don’t think so. Romney isn’t that subtle. If he thinks Social Security retirees are leeches, he says so (as noted above, he said so). His stated reasoning is that Biden is “the big guy” and Trump is “the little guy” (interesting comparison); also because “it’s not going to get resolved before the election,” and “frankly the country doesn’t want to have to go through prosecuting a former president.”
Who says? Many of us do. Millions of Americans want Trump held accountable. Why should only his henchmen go to jail, and not the mastermind pulling the strings? If Romney thinks a Trump pardon would heal the country he’s wrong, it would only put him above the law and endanger the rule of law.
Only a majority of Republicans support pardoning Trump, according to a poll in June 2023 (details here). This is Romney talking again as though only Republicans exist — that’s the best way to understand this. But just as the majority of America brushed aside Romney in 2012 (see election results here), we should wave him off this time, too. The January 6, 2021, insurrection was no Watergate; it was a frontal assault on consent of the governed.
If ever any president deserved legal punishment, Trump does for those actions. This isn’t revenge-seeking, there’s no speck of vengeance in it, it’s about upholding the rule of law against someone who tried to destroy the rule of law and will try again if given the opportunity.
One more thing: If Biden was in trouble like Trump is, do you think Trump would pardon him? Hell no!
What goes around, comes around.