Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in an interview with “Face the Nation” that if the new accusations made against former President Donald Trump are true, “it’s incredibly dangerous to our national security.”
Haley, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, wouldn’t say if she trusted the Department of Justice herself, but promised that if she becomes president, she would “clean it up from the top.”
“We want fairness, the American people want transparency, throw it all out there and let us decide,” Haley told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan.
“Don’t hide certain things, don’t push out certain things. Let’s make it transparent. Transparency cures all things. That’s what people want from the Department of Justice.”
Last week, a superseding indictment added three new felony charges against Trump in the case involving documents with classified markings discovered at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The new filing alleges that on two occasions in 2021, Trump showed classified documents to people at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
In July of that year, Trump showed a document described in the indictment as a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country” and marked TOP SECRET/NOFORN to a group of writers who did not hold security clearances. Trump described it to the writers as a “plan of attack” prepared for him by the Department of Defense. CBS News has reported that the July document was a Department of Defense memo on war plans to attack Iran.
In August or September of that year, Trump showed a representative of his political action committee who did not hold a security clearance a classified map related to a military operation, according to the indictment. Trump told the representative that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close.
When asked by Brennan if she would enforce all laws concerning classified information as president, Haley said, “absolutely.”
“You know, when I was at the United Nations, there were really strict rules on how you handled classified information,” said Haley. “And I think what we’ve seen is, there need to be instructions as a president leaves as well.” Haley served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. for Trump from 2017 to 2018.
When Brennan asked Haley about two of the new obstruction counts in the indictment relating to alleged efforts by Trump to have the director of information technology at Mar-a-Lago delete security camera footage sought by a federal grand jury, Haley said, “none of that sounds good.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat,” Haley said. “You shouldn’t be erasing anything unless you have something to hide. But everybody needs to be treated the same way.”
Haley also stressed her desire to “move forward” and stop discussing the multiple indictments against Trump at the federal and state levels, comparing the situation at hand to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon.
“I’ll take you back to Nixon and Ford,” Haley said. “I think that one of the things we have to look at is not what’s in the best interest of, you know, the president, but what’s in the best interest of the country.”
Haley stated before in a radio interview that she would be “inclined” to pardon Trump, while adding, “it’s really premature at this point, when he’s not even been convicted of anything.”
“We can’t keep living with indictments and court cases and vengeance of the past,” said Haley. “We’ve got to start going forward. American people are not talking about these indictments.”
