Former Attorney General Eric Holder believes any pardon of former President Donald Trump must be preceded by an expression of "remorse," Breitbart reported. The former Obama official said this on CBS's "Face the Nation" program Sunday.
"Before I let you go, I want to ask you to put on your attorney general hat again," host Margaret Brennan began. "Would you counsel President Biden, or the next president, whoever that is, to consider a pardon of the 45th president of the United States, either before or after a theoretical conviction," she asked the former official.
"I think I’d look — tell the president, the next attorney general, you know, to let the – let the system do its work, try the cases, see what the results are, and then treat that convicted president or anybody else who is convicted as any other person would be treated," Holder said. “Pardons generally are for people who express remorse and then who have done things that show that they have turned their lives around," he added.
"If those kinds of determinations can be made with regard to the former president or anybody else who is convicted, yes, I would support that. In the absence of something like that, I don’t think that would be a wise thing to do," Holder added.
Trump is facing 37 charges in federal court for mishandling classified materials even as he's fighting other legal battles elsewhere, Fox News reported. He maintains his innocence and called the case a "witch hunt" while his attorney likened it to what happens in third-world regimes.
"The targeting prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela," Trump's attorney Alina Habba said. "It is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted, and put into jail."
The former president also called the move to indict him "election interference at the highest level" in an interview with Fox News Digital. "This is the most corrupt administration in history — there has never been an administration so corrupt, and they’re just starting to find it right now," Trump said.
"They are trying to deflect all of their dishonesty by bringing this ridiculous boxes hoax case." However, if Trump is convicted, the next GOP president might be inclined to grant him a pardon.
Trump's closest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has promised to pardon Trump and any of the people incorrectly caught up in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. "What I’m going to do is … on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases [of] people who are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons," he said on "Clay & Buck" on May 25.
DeSantis said he's willing to look at people with "technical violations of the law" for possible action. "If there are other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like [Black Lives Matter] protests and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so we’re going to find ways where that did not happen," DeSantis said.
"And then we will use the pardon power — and I will do that at the front end," he added. The show's co-host attempted to clarify that it "could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted to all the way up to, potentially, Trump himself."
"Is that fair to say when you analyze what the charges might have been brought on a federal level?" Travis asked. "I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big," DeSantis replied.
Trump has been a target of the left since he announced his candidacy. He has faced many witch hunts, but the latest federal trial could gain traction enough to take him out.
However, it's heartening that DeSantis would be willing to publicly defend Trump and all of the average Americans who found themselves caught up in the left's political prosecutions. It looks like one way or another, Trump may be down but he'll never be out.
