Former President Donald Trump's legal woes have been one of the most discussed topics on the campaign trail, especially as some Republican presidential candidates pressure their primary opponents to pledge to pardon the GOP front-runner, if they're elected.
Trump faces 40 counts in the Department of Justice's classified documents case against him, which special counsel Jack Smith said in May were related to "felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.”
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Smith is separately investigating the former president over his handling of his 2020 election loss, and is reported to be considering charges in that case.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in both matters, and vowed to fight the two sets of charges.
After the classified documents indictment dropped, GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy vowed in a tweet to "pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country."
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepeneur who has seen a slow-but-steady rise in national polling, went on to call on his primary opponents to make the same promise to voters.
Ramaswamy has continued to stand by the pledge to pardon Trump, despite so few of his GOP competitors following suit.
Asked about the idea of pardoning Trump on Sunday, former Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CBS' Face the Nation that even the discussion was "inappropriate."
"That should not be any discussion during a presidential campaign. You don't put pardons out there to garner votes," he said. "Anybody who promises pardons during a presidential campaign is not serving our system of justice well, and it's inappropriate."
Former GOP South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley also appeared on the same program on Sunday, offering a different take.
"I think that one of the things we have to look at is not what's in the best interest of the president, but what's in the best interest of the country. We have to move forward," Haley said. "We've got to quit living in the past, and I don't want there to be all of this division over the fact that we have a president serving years in jail over a documents trial."
"I want all of this to go away. We can't keep living with indictments and court cases and vengeance of the past," she added.
Haley is the only major candidate who has responded somewhat positively to Ramaswamy's suggestion.
Candidates like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) have shut down the idea of a pardon, with the latter saying at an Iowa GOP event on Friday that Trump is only running for president "to stay out of prison," which garnered boos from the crowd.
Christie said in an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation earlier this month that he "can't imagine" offering Trump a presidential pardon if he was found guilty in the documents case.
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“As long as I thought he got a fair trial … I would have a hard time considering any pardon," Christie told the network. "And by the way, as you know, to get a pardon, you have to also accept responsibility for what you did. I doubt very highly that Donald Trump would ever do that. And so I can’t imagine a pardon being issued.”
Other leading candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Vice President Mike Pence, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have declined to weigh-in on the matter.