Manchin says Biden should pardon Trump

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said Monday in an interview with CNN that President Biden should pardon President-elect Trump.

"What I would have done differently, and my recommendation as a counsel woulda been, 'Why don't you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump, for all his charges?'" Manchin said of Biden's pardoning of Hunter Biden when talking to CNN's Manu Raju.

Biden announced the pardon of his son late Sunday, arguing in a statement that the charges brought against his son, which included three felony charges on his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018, came about due to political reasons.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” Biden said.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” he added. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Manchin said Monday that he doesn't "know of a father that [wouldn't have] done the same thing" when talking about Hunter Biden's pardon.

Trump reacted negatively to the pardon via a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” the president-elect said in the post, referring to rioters who have been accused of storming the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The former president has been through his fair share of legal woes in the last few years, including two federal cases surrounding classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Special counsel Jack Smith recently moved to dismiss both federal cases, giving the reasoning behind doing so as the Department of Justice's (DOJ) policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Trump celebrated Smith's actions on his Truth Social platform last Monday.

“These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party’s fight against their Political Opponent, ME. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before,” Trump added.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for further comment.