Senator Tim Scott Dodges Question on Trump Pardon, Vows to Clean Up DOJ

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South Carolina senator and 2024 presidential hopeful Tim Scott declined to say whether he would pardon Donald Trump if the former president was convicted on federal charges related to his mishandling of classified documents. I won’t deal with hypotheticals, but I will say that every American is innocent until proven guilty, Scott told Fox’s Shannon Bream on Sunday.

Instead, Scott trained his anger on the Justice Department, which he accused of trying to prey on Republicans. We need to clean up the political appointments at the Department of Justice to restore competence and integrity to the DOJ today, Scott said.

Scotts comments on Sunday made him the latest Republican presidential candidate to weigh in on the question of a potential Trump pardon, an issue that is quickly becoming a dividing line among Republican hopefuls in 2024.

Among the current field, Trump’s strongest defender is biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy. The longshot candidate promised to pardon Trump immediately on January 20, 2025 and restore the rule of law in our country. Last week, Ramaswamy appeared outside a Florida federal courthouse on the day of Trumps arraignment and said he had sent a letter to every 2024 Republican candidate, asking them to publicly pledge to pardon Trump or else publicly explain why. you won’t. Fellow businessman and presidential longshot, Perry Johnson, has also pledged to pardon the former president, and conservative radio host Larry Elder has said he probably will too.

The prospect of pardoning the twice-impeached former president received a more lukewarm response from Nikki Haley. Last week, the former governor of South Carolina said he was in favor of a pardon, though he called the discussion premature and made sure to call the former president incredibly reckless with our national security.

So far, two candidates former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson have come out against making the pardon promise. “I can’t imagine if he gets a fair trial that I will pardon him,” Christie said Wednesday, adding, “To receive a pardon, you have to admit your guilt.” Asked Tuesday about fellow candidates floating Trump’s pardons, Hutchinson called the promises wrong, unreasonable and a bad precedent. I want our candidates to show more courage and speak about it and provide leadership,” he said.

Other candidates, such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence, have gone the Scotts route, avoiding directly addressing a possible Trump pardon while vowing to attack the DOJ if elected. Using similar language to Scott, DeSantis promised to clean house on day one, while Pence promised to clean house at the highest levels of the DOJ.

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