During a televised discussion for CNN this week, former President Donald Trump once again reiterated his interest in pardoning at least many of those who participated in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in early 2021. Despite previously making no distinction between those who committed violence and those whose offenses were less serious, Donald acknowledged this time that there was at least some difference — and ludicrously described those guilty of more serious acts as “a couple of them.”
“We have long been a party that believes in the law and order,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said about the ex-president’s comments, according to CNN’s Manu Raju. “The suggestion that people who broke the law and have been convicted by juries or by the legal process, they’re are all going to get, or almost all of them are going to get pardoned is simply a violation of the principles upon which our country and our party have long stood.” It’s generally true, of course. What Trump is proposing amounts to a systematic sideswipe at the criminal justice system, undercutting the outcomes of established processes and consequences for what were often well-documented actions. Even rioters who didn’t directly participate in the physical violence still often were tacitly in direct agreement with the openly murderous elements of the rampage. Do other Republican leaders care?
In commentary on Trump’s CNN appearance, Romney also criticized the former president for not firmly supporting Ukraine in its defense against the extensive invasion from Vladimir Putin’s forces launched early last year. Romney said what was on display was “what [Americans] would get with another term of Donald Trump as president, which is completely untethered to the truth, uncertain as to whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to win in the brutal conflict which Russia has imposed on Ukraine.”
Mitt Romney says people saw at CNN townhall "what they would get with another term of Donald Trump as president, which is completely untethered to the truth, uncertain as to whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to win in the brutal conflict which Russia has imposed on Ukraine."
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 11, 2023
"The suggestion that people who broke the law and have been convicted by juries or by the legal process, they’re are all going to get, or almost all of them are going to get pardoned is simply a violation of the principles upon which our country and our party have long stood."
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 11, 2023
