Andrew Yang said he might consider pardoning Donald Trump if he were to win in November, breaking from some of his Democratic rivals in promoting a message of unity and moving on from scandal.
As Politico reported, Yang offered a different tone than Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who suggested that she would set up an independent task force to investigate the potential corruption of the Trump administration. But Yang said that he would consult with his attorney general, survey all the facts, and then make a decision.
Yang warned against creating a situation where one administration would seek to punish the predecessor, breaking the peaceful transition of power that has set America apart from less stable nations. He has also raised the idea of pardoning Trump before, and hinted toward the theme of unity in his campaign slogan of “Moving Froward Together.”
In remarks on Sunday, Yang said he thought it was dangerous to focus too much on prosecuting the past administration.
“If you look at history around the world, it’s a very, very nasty pattern that developing countries have fallen into, where a new president ends up throwing the president before them in jail,” Yang said on ABC’s This Week , via Politico.
“That pattern unfortunately makes it very hard for any party to govern sustainably moving forward with a sense of unity among their people. And so to me, America should try to avoid that pattern if at all possible.”
As Politico noted, this is not the first time that Yang has broken with Democratic rivals on how to address Trump. He has previously criticized others for their focus on impeachment, seeking to move on and focus on his plans for a presidential administration. Not all rivals are able to create distance from impeachment, as the three sitting U.S. senators in the race — Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar — will all be voting on whether to convict Trump and remove him from office.
Warren has been among the most aggressive in announcing plans to hold the Trump administration accountable for any potential wrongdoing. As ABC News reported, she vowed to ask for the resignation of all Trump political appointees in addition to forming a task force within the Justice Department.
“The next president will need to have the energy, expertise, and vision to safeguard our country, rebuild the government swiftly, and make fundamental changes so that it works for the American people,” Warren wrote in a post that announced her proposal.
