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Derek Chauvin: Ben Shapiro launches effort to pardon Derek Chauvin - CNN

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has publicly called for the president to pardon former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for federal crimes related to George Floyd’s 2020 death – drawing derision from the Minnesota attorney general who helped put Chauvin in prison but amplification from one of Trump’s most powerful advisers.

Shapiro’s proposal could spring to mind several questions, including: “Could a president do that?” (Answer: Yes); and, “What would it matter, since Chauvin also is in prison on state charges?” (Answer: It’s complicated).

Shapiro’s effort to solicit a pardon for Chauvin, a White man convicted of murdering a Black man in a case that sparked massive nationwide protests over the way police treat people of color, comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to push back on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and what some see as gains made toward racial justice since Floyd’s death.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump touted his administration’s forceful crackdown on DEI programs, and vowed “our country will be woke no longer.” And a congressman recently introduced a bill that would withhold some federal funding in Washington, DC, if the mayor does not remove the district’s Black Lives Matter mural and rename the eponymous plaza located near the White House.

In an interview with CNN Thursday, one of Floyd’s brothers, Terrence, said the call to pardon Chauvin has been hard for his relatives who have slowly begun to heal five years after George’s death. “We were supposed to see progress,” Terrence Floyd said. “So many people promised things, especially if we (are) going to go with the DEI, so many things was promised to us as a people – not just to Black and brown people – as a people. And they’re backpedaling.”

Here’s what Shapiro has called for, how some have reacted, and what experts say could come of it: Shapiro casts Chauvin’s conviction as an injustice

At the end of Tuesday’s episode of his video podcast “The Ben Shapiro Show,” Shapiro called for Trump to pardon Chauvin of his federal conviction, essentially arguing, counter to what a state jury found, that Chauvin wasn’t responsible for Floyd’s death.

The roughly three-minute segment, which Shapiro also posted on X, urges viewers to sign a petition asking Trump to consider a federal pardon. Elon Musk, the billionaire helping lead Trump’s government efficiency initiatives, later reposted Shapiro’s segment, writing it’s “something to think about.”

Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck and back for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, after officers responded to reports suspecting Floyd used a counterfeit $20 at a Minneapolis corner store. Floyd, 46, was handcuffed and lying face down on a street as he repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe.” He was eventually taken away by an ambulance and declared dead at a hospital, authorities said.

A county medical examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide and identified the cause as “cardiopulmonary arrest” that occurred during “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” – findings he stood by at Chauvin’s trial. Heart disease and fentanyl use were contributing factors but not the direct cause, the medical examiner testified.

In April 2021, a Minnesota jury found Chauvin guilty on state charges of unintentional murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison on those state charges, and the US Supreme Court later rejected his appeal of the state conviction.

In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights, and also depriving a 14-year-old of his civil rights by using excessive force in a separate 2017 case. Chauvin is now serving both terms concurrently.

When Shapiro addressed the case in Tuesday’s podcast, he conceded at the outset that pardoning Chauvin would be “incredibly controversial.” “But I think it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.

Chauvin shouldn’t have been convicted of murder, Shapiro argued, in part asserting some of what Chauvin’s defense attorney had claimed at trial: that Floyd died of factors other than Chauvin’s intervention, including preexisting health conditions.

Shapiro also argued “there was massive overt pressure on the jury to return a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence.” Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s conviction, Shapiro said, “led to vast chaos and it led to the destruction of racial comity in the United States.”

The White House declined to comment Thursday on whether Trump is considering a pardon for Chauvin.