Trump says it’s ‘very unlikely’ he would pardon himself if he is convicted and then elected

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Former president Donald Trump has said it is “very unlikely” he will pardon himself if he is convicted and ultimately elected in 2024.

In an interview with NBC News, Mr Trump, who has been indicted four times, claimed he “didn’t do anything wrong”.

“I think it’s very unlikely. What, what did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “You mean because I challenge an election, they want to put me in jail?”

In the rare network TV interview, Mr Trump also admitted he considered pardoning himself towards the end of his first term in 2021.

“People said, ‘Would you like to pardon yourself?’ I had a couple of attorneys that said, ‘You can do it if you want,’” Mr Trump said. “I had some people that said, ‘It would look bad if you do it, because I think it would look terrible.’”

He said he told attorneys pardoning himself would be the “last thing” he would ever do.

He added that on his last day in office, “I could have had a pardon done that would have saved me all of these lawyers and all of this — these fake charges, these Biden indictments.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the former president was asked if he still thinks there are “two systems of justice” — one for him and one for president Joe Biden’s allies — after the president’s son Hunter Biden was indicted on federal charges this week.

“There’s no question about it,” Mr Trump said. “He had a plea deal that was the deal of the century. The art of the deal — you could write a book on it.”

Hunter Biden was indicted on federal charges that he obtained a gun by falsely attesting that he was not using drugs.

Opinion polls indicate that Mr Trump is by far the strongest contender to become the Republican Party‘s nominee in the 2024 presidential election.

Nearly 100 felony criminal charges have been leveled against Mr Trump, stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his retention of classified documents after his defeat and hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Between his 91 felony counts, Mr Trump faces a total of roughly seven centuries in total jail time.

His full interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker will air on Sunday.