President Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump

Back in the day, our nation’s founders had this crazy idea “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility … .”

I say crazy because nearly 2? centuries later the union is nowhere near perfect, justice for all has yet to be established and virtually no aspect of our domestic situation is tranquil.

These days, one of the major reasons for this turmoil is former President Donald Trump, a man who has never been particularly keen on tranquility.

Just the opposite.

Chaos is his game.

That may be one of the reasons he’s in trouble, most recently having been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Opinions on Trump indictment won't change

He also faces possible indictment out of Atlanta for allegedly attempting to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia.

As well as more potential indictments stemming from a Department of Justice investigation into the classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago, as well as any connection he may have had to the Jan. 6., 2021, insurrection.

The general public’s reaction to Trump’s indictment falls into two categories. People either believe it is proof that no one is above the law, or proof of a politically motivated witch hunt.

Should any of the cases against Trump proceed to trial, where a verdict is reached, not a single person’s opinion about this will change.

Not one.

A pardon was right for Nixon. And for Trump

Should Trump be found guilty, there would be an appeal, or perhaps many appeals.

And no matter how those cases are resolved, I’d guess he will never spend any time in jail because, basically, we have yet “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility … .”

Given all that, President Joe Biden should pull a Gerald Ford and pardon Donald Trump. And, yes, I know, a president can't pardon someone for a state crime, only for federal offenses. But Biden can eliminate federal complaints. He can set a tone. He can be, in a way Trump never was, presidential.

In 1974, after former President Richard Nixon resigned over his involvement in the Watergate scandal, for which he would have faced criminal prosecution, Ford announced that he had decided to “grant a full, free and absolute pardon” to Nixon.

The pardon was not well received. A majority of Americans wanted Nixon prosecuted, and Ford’s decision may have cost him the subsequent presidential election.

Years later, even critics changed their minds

Ford never wavered, however.

He appeared before a congressional committee and told them, “I was absolutely convinced then as I am now that if we had had an indictment, a trial, a conviction, and anything else that transpired after this that the attention of the President, the Congress and the American people would have been diverted from the problems that we have to solve.”

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One of those who disagreed with Ford at the time was Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

In 2001, however, while presenting Ford with a Profile in Courage award, Kennedy said, “Unlike many of us at the time, President Ford recognized that the nation had to move forward, and could not do so if there was a continuing effort to prosecute former President Nixon. His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us.”

'We would needlessly be diverted,' Ford said

Every president grants pardons.

Barack Obama issued 212. George W. Bush did 189. Trump, during his time, granted 143.

They are often controversial. More proof of our messy system of justice.

I am not na?ve enough to believe that granting a pardon to Trump would – in any way – begin the process of healing or put the tragedy behind us.

But it’s still the right thing to do.

Ford told the House committee, “Our nation is under the severest of challenges now to employ its full energies and efforts in the pursuit of a sound and growing economy at home and a stable and peaceful world around us. We would needlessly be diverted from meeting those challenges if we as a people were to remain sharply divided over whether to indict, bring to trial, and punish a former President … .”

Yeah, what he said.

Reach Montini at [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump, spare us from indictment mess