Sen. Joni Ernst advised President Trump exercise caution when deciding whether to pardon service members accused of war crimes.
“I’ll just be up front and say I don’t know the details of what went through the prosecution in that particular case,” the Iowa Republican said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday. “But I would say if our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, if they are accused and found guilty of war crimes, we need to be very careful in that, because it is not OK to perpetrate war crimes.”
“I would just advise the president to be very careful, scrutinize — of course — each case individually, and if it’s warranted, grant a pardon,” said Ernst, an Iraq War veteran who served in the U.S. Army Reserves. “If it is not, and someone has committed a war crime, then a sentence should be served.”
The New York Times reported last week that Trump was considering issuing pardons on or around Memorial Day for multiple members of the military accused or convicted of war crimes.
The White House reportedly made expedited requests to obtain necessary paperwork to pardon service members including Navy SEAL Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, who was charged with shooting unarmed civilians and killing an enemy captive with a knife during a deployment in Iraq.
Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., also weighed in on the issue Sunday and argued “one of the things that protects our troops morally and physically is the knowledge that if anybody in uniform does commit a crime, they will be held accountable by military justice.”
“For a president, especially a president who never served, to say he’s going to come in and overrule that system of military justice undermines the very foundations, legal and moral, of this country,” Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran, said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that aired Sunday.
Trump said Friday that no decisions were finalized and added he may hold off issuing pardons until the trials wrapped up.
“There’s two or three of them right now,” Trump told reporters. “It’s a little bit controversial. It’s very possible that I’ll let the trials go on, and I’ll make my decision after the trial.”
“Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard and long,” Trump said. “You know, we teach them how to be great fighters, and then when they fight, sometimes they get really treated very unfairly.”
