Representative Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) called on Democratic New York governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Donald Trump “for the good of the country” after the former president’s historic felony conviction.
“Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,” Phillips wrote in a post on X on Friday, before going on to say that Hochul should pardon him anyway.
Phillips ran a brief, long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination this year before endorsing Biden.
In a subsequent post on Saturday, Phillips said: “You think pardoning is stupid? Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different.) It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost.”
Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted on criminal charges after he was found guilty of 34 felony charges for falsifying business records. He has dismissed the case as “rigged.”
The conviction has served as a fundraising boon to the Trump campaign, which announced Friday that it had raised nearly $53 million in the 24 hours after the conviction.
Seventy-seven percent of Republican voters and 43 percent of independents said they believe the conviction was driven by motivation to damage Trump’s political career, according to a new Morning Consult poll released Saturday.
The poll found that 49 percent of independents believe Trump should end his campaign because of the conviction; just 15 percent of Republicans said the same.
Still, the poll finds Biden and Trump neck-and-neck, with the president leading the former president by just one point.
The next step on the former president’s winding path through the criminal-justice system will be a meeting with a probation officer, who will use the interview to compile a pre-sentencing report. Trump’s sentencing will follow on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee. He faces up to four years in prison, though legal experts who spoke to National Review agreed that probation is the more likely punishment.