Shortly before the unprecedented arraignment of former President Donald Trump in federal court on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy hosted a press engagement.

During his press conference in front of the Miami Courthouse, Ramaswamy urged each of the other candidates to sign an oath promising to pardon Trump if they win the election.

In addition, Ramaswamy promised to sue the Justice Department using campaign funds if his Freedom of Information Act request is ignored.

A portion of the transcript is as follows:

So the bottom line is there are two things that matter. One is how are we going to hold the Biden Department of Justice accountable? The first answer is that yesterday I submitted a freedom of information act request, a demand to the Biden Department of Justice demanding what did Biden tell Jack Smith, what did Biden tell Merrick Garland, what did Merrick Garland tell special prosecutor Jack Smith? They’re required within 20 business days to give us an answer about any direct or indirect communications. And the first announcement I want to make today is that if they do not comply with the law in the next 20 business days, then we will sue them in federal courts at our campaign’s expense to get to the bottom of those answers. The news media should be doing this. It is a shame that a competitor to Donald Trump in this election has to do the job of the political news media.

It is a shame it takes a leader outside of the media to stand up. That’s what we’re doing. They now have this freedom of information act request and if they don’t comply within 20 days and they don’t follow the law we’ll see to it in federal court that they do. That brings me to my second announcement that I will make today. This is an announcement of a letter that my campaign has sent to every other campaign in this race, to Mike Pence, to Nikki Haley, to Larry Elder, to RFK junior, to Marianne Williamson, to dougburg um, to perry Johnson and Chris Christie, to ran DeSantis the governor of the state where we are today who is not here today in his own state.

I will tell you that we have sent this letter, I’m happy to announce this is my commitment on January 20th, 2025, if I’m elected the next U.S. president, to pardon Donald Trump for these offenses in this federal case.

And I have challenged – I have demanded that every other candidate in this race either sign this commitment to pardon on January 20th, 2025, or else to explain why they are not.

I think that we need to declare independence from our donor class in the Republican Party. That is why I challenge every one of the other candidates to actually act on their convictions. If you are not going to pardon President Trump on January 20, 2025, you deserve to say why and we’ll hold you accountable just as we are holding the Biden Administration accountable.

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Ramaswamy criticized the establishment media and CNN presenter Dana Bash for ignoring the Biden administration’s use of the Department of Justice as a political weapon against a political opponent.

In Dana Bash’s “State of the Union” interview, the 37 allegations made by Special Counsel Jack Smith against Donald Trump for handling sensitive documents dominated the conversation.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

Trump, who will challenge Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race, may spend years in custody if he is deemed guilty on every charge. CONTINUE READING…