Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination, said Sunday he anticipated that if former President Donald Trump is re-elected and convicted in the classified documents case, he would try to forgive yourself.
“I could definitely see Donald Trump doing that. This is exactly what he would intend if elected president. And if [his case] hasn’t been brought to justice before that, he’s likely to publish it as well,” Hutchinson said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.”
“From a legal point of view, from a constitutional point of view, this is a question that the courts should decide,” he added. ” I doubt. I don’t think that’s the intention of the Constitution in granting the president the power of pardon. But above all, it would be inappropriate, inappropriate.
A federal grand jury indicted Trump this month for allegedly misleading federal investigators in his attempt to preserve a trove of sensitive documents he knew were still classified.
The former president faces 37 charges, including false statements, conspiracy to obstruct and willful withholding of national defense information, stemming from more than 100 classified documents recovered from Mar-a- Lago last year, according to the indictment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the case. The former president and his Republican allies framed his landmark indictment as an effort by the Biden administration to undermine his re-election bid.
Hutchinson also took aim at Republican presidential candidates who have vowed to pardon Trump in the classified documents case if elected, and denounced allegations by the former president and his Republican allies that the Ministry of Justice was “armed”.
“In terms of the overall charge, ‘Weaponizing the Justice Department’ – look at Donald Trump. He’s already said that if he’s elected president, he’ll appoint a special prosecutor to prosecute the Biden family. It’s called militarizing of the Department of Justice,” Hutchinson said. “And so, let’s drop those charges.”
“Let’s get back to being the party of the rule of law, of the judiciary supporting the application of the law and the equal application of the law,” he added.
The charges made Trump, who has been impeached twice, the first former president to face federal criminal charges. No president has attempted to pardon themselves under the Constitution, and it is unclear whether they can do so.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a longtime 2024 GOP candidate, said he would forgive Trump and urged other Republican candidates to do the same. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley suggested last week that she would as well.
Two other candidates, former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott, R.S.C., dodged the Sunday programs when asked if they would forgive Trump if they won the White House the next year.
“Well, I just think the question is premature,” Pence said in an interview on “Meet the Press,” noting that he pardoned people while he was governor of Indiana.
Asked by NBC News’ Chuck Todd what his bar for a pardon would be, Pence clashed and criticized other Republican presidential candidates for assuming Trump would be found guilty.
“I think we need to let the courts do their job and let this case take its course – work its way through our court system,” he said. And if I have the great privilege of being President of the United States, as I did when I was Governor, we would assess any request for a pardon for any American on the same basis.
Scott also dodged when asked if he would commit to pardoning Trump in a interview on “Fox News Sunday”.
“Well, I’m not going to deal with speculation, but I will say that every American is innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com