Mitt Romney, Who Voted to Convict Trump, Says Biden Should Have Pardoned the Ex-President of All Federal Crimes and Abused His Power to Kill State Charges

Mitt Romney has called Donald Trump a “phony,” “fraud,” “con man,” and “whack job.” He has said Trump is “unquestionably mentally unstable…racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar, and prone to violence.” He voted to convict Trump on one article the first time the then president was impeached, describing Trump’s actions as an “appalling abuse of the public trust,” and voted to convict the second time as well, saying that, without question, “President Trump incited the insurrection against Congress.” When Trump was charged by the Justice Department for allegedly willfully retaining national defense documents and attempting to obstruct justice, Romney said, “Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so. These allegations are serious and, if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection.”

For all these reasons and more, you might think that Romney would want to see Trump brought to justice for his many alleged crimes and, if convicted, sentenced to the appropriate punishments. But apparently, not so much!

Speaking to Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday, the senator from Utah insisted Joe Biden should have pardoned Trump “immediately” after he was indicted on federal charges and claimed the president “made an enormous error” by not demanding New York prosecutors drop their case against his predecessor. “Had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought out indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him,” Romney told Ruhle. “I’d have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy, and the person I pardoned the little guy.” On the state case, Romney opined that the president “should have fought like crazy to keep this prosecution from going forward,” claiming the situation “was a win-win for Donald Trump.” Taking it back to the 1960s, he said: “I’ve been around for a while. If LBJ had been president, and he didn’t want something like this to happen, he’d have been all over that prosecutor, saying, ‘You better not bring that forward or I’m gonna drive you out of office.’”

Obviously, this would have been a gross abuse of power, given that Biden has no authority over state charges. Attempting to confirm that Romney was, in fact, aware of this, Ruhle told the senator, “I’m pretty sure you support having separate but equal branches of government,” to which he responded, “I do,” before going into why Biden should have pardoned Trump in the federal cases.

Of course, there are some problems with Romney’s whole pardoning Trump would have made Biden the big guy and his opponent the little guy thesis: (1) It presupposes that that is how people would view the situation, and (2) it means a guy who allegedly committed every crime under the sun,* from willfully retaining state secrets and obstructing justice to attempting to overturn the results of a free and fair election, would just…be allowed to get away with it all.

Meanwhile, in the same interview, Romney, perhaps unintentionally, made clear that there is merit to holding Trump accountable for his actions—not just because the former president should be treated like any other person in the eyes of the law, but because it allows voters to fully understand who they’re potentially casting a ballot for.

But sure, right, pardon the guy. Great idea, Mitt!

*He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.