Mary Trump Sounds Alarm on Donald Trump Pardon Idea

Mary Trump, the estranged niece of Donald Trump, said on Saturday that Representative Dean Phillips’ call for pardoning the former president is “insanity” and an “absolutely terrible idea.”

On Friday, Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat who previously challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic 2024 presidential nomination, publicly asked New York Governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Trump after a jury found him guilty on Thursday in his criminal hush money trial.

“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. @GovKathyHochul should pardon him for the good of the country,” the congressman wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The next day, he reiterated his stance and wrote in another X post: “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, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged the payment was meant to prevent her from speaking publicly about her claims of having an affair with the former president in 2006.

Trump maintains his innocence and denied the affair happened. He has repeatedly called the trial a “sham” and “rigged,” with his legal team saying they will fight the case, which will include an appeal, if necessary

Mary Trump, a critic of her uncle, jabbed Phillips in an X post and wrote, “remember former presidential candidate Dean Phillips? Neither do I, but his untreated megalomania forces him to keep reminding us he exists. Now he’s in the news bc he thinks Donald should be pardoned which is how we know it’s an absolutely terrible idea.”

In a second X post, she wrote: “I’m sure we’ll be talking about this in the coming days—not Dean Phillips obviously, but the insanity of pardoning a convicted criminal who’s trying to destroy America.”

Newsweek reached out to Mary Trump and Phillips’ press team via email on Saturday afternoon for comment.

Meanwhile, the congressman’s comments come after Trump’s campaign claims he “nearly doubled” his daily fundraising record after his conviction.

In a Friday statement sent to Newsweek, Trump’s campaign said: “Today, the Trump campaign announced a record shattering small dollar fundraising haul following the sham Biden Trial verdict totaling $34.8 million – nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform.”

According to Google Trends data, searches for “how to donate to Trump” spiked at about 5:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, when news about the verdict broke, and peaked at about 6:24 p.m. States like Alabama, Idaho and North Dakota had the most interest in the search.

Biden has still outraised Trump, however. According to data from the Federal Election Commission, Trump raised $120 million through the end of April. Biden, on the other hand, raised more than $183 million through the end of the month.