Sen. Joe Manchin’s lengthy career in public service, which began with a seat in West Virginia’s state legislature 42 years ago this week, has very nearly reached the end. The independent senator didn’t run for re-election this year, and in a month’s time, he’ll leave Capitol Hill.
But before he goes, Manchin has one more bad idea to pitch. The Hill reported:
Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said Monday in an interview with CNN that President Biden should pardon President-elect Trump. “What I would have done differently, and my recommendation as a counsel woulda been, ‘Why don’t you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump, for all his charges?’” Manchin said of Biden’s pardoning of Hunter Biden when talking to CNN’s Manu Raju.
The West Virginian isn’t the only one thinking along these lines: A week before Manchin made the on-camera comments, The Washington Post published a related piece from the American Enterprise Institute’s Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka making the case for such a pardon. (This is a subject the pair apparently takes quite seriously: In June 2023, Thiessen and Pletka wrote a separate Washington Post opinion piece that also called on the incumbent Democratic president to pardon his Republican predecessor/successor.)
Those who make this argument tend to rely on predictable claims: Biden could pardon Trump in the interest of magnanimous healing, advancing the cause of bipartisan comity. Such a move would, proponents suggest, promote post-election unity, and help the country advance past a period of rancor and division.
Biden, in other words, could and should play the role of Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon after he resigned in disgrace following the Watergate scandal.
Does the pitch have merit? No, it does not.
Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that Biden has already vowed not to do this. In May 2020, during his campaign, the Delaware Democrat participated in a virtual town hall-style event on MSNBC and fielded a question from a concerned voter who asked whether Biden would pledge not to pardon Trump if elected.
“Absolutely, yes,” the then-candidate replied. “I commit.”
Three years later, as GOP presidential candidates talked up the idea of pardoning Trump if they were elected, reporters asked Biden about his stance on the issue. The president literally laughed at the question, suggesting he hadn’t changed his mind.
What’s more, it’s not a secret that the Republican president-elect doesn’t exactly need a pardon: The Justice Department has a long-standing policy that says a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, which is why special counsel Jack Smith and his team have grudgingly agreed to wrap up their compelling, backed-by-voluminous-evidence criminal cases against Trump.








