President Biden could bridge the bitter divide in the country over the federal prosecution of former President Trump by pardoning his predecessor, but the move would also risk political martyrdom for Mr. Biden.
The first federal prosecution of a former president, who is also the Republican frontrunner for president in 2024, has widened divisions in America’s already bitterly partisan political climate.
Mr. Biden could turn the temperature with a pardon of Mr. Trump, who declared his innocence in a federal courtroom Tuesday on 37 charges of mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice. A pardon by Mr. Biden would be intended to heal the nation and end the possibility of ongoing political retribution every time political parties change control in Washington.
“A pardon would be the cleanest way out of this,” said Robert W. Ray, who succeeded Kenneth W. Starr as independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation into President Clinton. “All they are doing now is further dividing the country. A pardon would leave the issue up to the voters where it appropriately resides.”
The White House has been mum about the possibility of pardoning Mr. Trump. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday declined to comment when asked about a possible pardon. When the question was posed to Mr. Biden last month, he just smiled and chuckled as he walked away from the reporter.
Mr. Trump seems not to be expecting a pardon from the president, having accused Mr. Biden of orchestrating the charges in the first place.
The indictment comes as America hurtles toward an even more polarizing and divided era.
Democrats are cheering the indictment, saying Mr. Trump has flouted the rule of law for too long. Trump supporters, on the other hand, say it was a political prosecution and the very institutions that symbolize law and order have become weaponized by Democrats for political gain.
Nearly half of Americans believe both Mr. Trump should have been charged and that the charges against him were politically motivated, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll taken last week.
There is a long tradition of former presidents issuing pardons to heal the nation during a time of crisis.
But Mr. Biden, who is running for reelection, will be hard-pressed to exonerate the man who is the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and whom Mr. Biden defeated in 2020.
That likely changes the political calculus around pardoning Mr. Trump because it would subject Mr. Biden to intense, scathing criticism from within his own party.
“Biden will not grant Trump a pardon because his base will tear him apart,” said historian Craig Shirley. “It will put Mr. Biden on the wrong side of his party and open him up to another primary challenge. He will pay a price politically.”
Pardoning Mr. Trump would also undercut Mr. Biden’s message that the former president is an extremist who poses a threat to Democracy. Mr. Biden has made attacking Mr. Trump and his ideology the centerpiece of his reelection campaign.
In April, Mr. Biden released a video announcing his reelection campaign which warns against “MAGA extremists,” whom he says are dictating women’s healthcare decisions, banning books, and restricting LGTBQ rights.
“Biden won’t pardon Trump in 2024 because he’s too invested in his animosity for Trump and he’s got a very, very liberal staff telling him he can’t do that,” Mr. Shirley said.
Other presidents who have issued controversial pardons have taken hits in the polls, which could be problematic for Mr. Biden, whose approval rating remains mired at roughly 40%.
In 1974, President Ford pardoned his predecessor, former President Nixon, for any crimes arising from the Watergate probe, even though Mr. Nixon wasn’t criminally charged.
Mr. Ford said the “tranquility of this nation … could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former president of the United States.”
Mr. Ford strode into office with a 71% approval rating when Mr. Nixon resigned, but that quickly plummeted to 50% after he pardoned Mr. Nixon, according to historical data from Gallup News Service.
The move is widely believed to have cost Mr. Ford a full term, and he finished his presidency with a 40% approval rating.
Jeffrey Crouch, an American University professor who has authored books on the presidential pardon powers, said the political environment has become too fraught from Watergate.
“Watergate was a long time ago and the mass media and political environments have changed,” he said. “A president from one political party potentially pardoning a former president from the other political party is already a big difference from Watergate.”
On his first full day in office, Mr. Ford’s successor, President Carter, granted an unconditional pardon to tens of thousands of Americans who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
Mr. Carter said the pardon was necessary to heal the division and trauma caused by the Vietnam War, but the decision angered veterans groups who had opposed amnesty for draft dodgers. Critics also slammed Mr. Carter for excluding military deserters from the pardon because draft dodgers tended to be well-educated, middle-class Americans.
Like Mr. Ford, Mr. Carter also lost his reelection bid as he dealt with a weak economy and foreign-policy blunders.
President Andrew Johnson also expanded President Lincoln’s clemency program for Confederate soldiers after the Civil War. Johnson’s clemency program was far more lenient than his predecessor, angering lawmakers in Congress from the North. Tensions soon boiled over and Congress impeached him for trying to fire his secretary of war. Johnson survived removal from office by one vote.
Among Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals, longshot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was the first to commit publicly to pardoning him. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Tuesday she, too, is “inclined” to pardon Mr. Trump.
If elected, Mr. Ramaswamy said he would pardon Mr. Trump on his first day in office to “restore the rule of law in our country.” He has floated the idea of a pardon pledge to Mr. Trump’s main Republican rivals, as well as Democrats challenging Mr. Biden such as Robert Kennedy Jr.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is emerging as Mr. Trump’s chief rival for the GOP nomination, said he would consider the idea, but stopped short of saying he would offer clemency.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.