Speaking at a town hall event in New Hampshire Thursday evening, Civil War history rewriter and Republican candidate for president Nikki Haley said she would issue a pardon for Donald Trump if she becomes president, Axios reports.  Responding to a nine-year-old’s question, Haley indicated that she would pardon Trump if he’s found guilty, not because he is innocent of the charges a jury of his peers convicted him on, but because she wants to take the Gerald Ford approach to “healing” our nation after it was split apart by Trumpism.

“If he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country.  What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country,” Haley said, adding, “What’s in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”  Fellow GOP candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have also indicted that they would pardon Trump for his federal crimes.

Haley didn’t explain how issuing a pardon and releasing from responsibility a man who attempted to undermine the Constitution and national security of the United States is “in the best interest of the country,” nor did she expound on how issuing a pardon would heal the nation given that Richard Nixon’s malfeasance is still regularly discussed even after he was pardoned.