Trump Won't Pardon Derek Chauvin

President Trump shot down speculation Friday that he might pardon former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin after conservative media personality Ben Shapiro publicly urged the commander-in-chief to do so.

“No, I haven’t even heard about it, no. I haven’t heard of that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

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George Floyd died after Chauvin, now 48, knelt on his neck for nine minutes while arresting him for using a fake $20 bill at a store.

Floyd’s final moments were captured on video, unleashing unrest in major cities — with a Minneapolis police precinct burned to the ground and fire set to the “Church of the Presidents” and a National Park Service building just north of the White House during running battles between protesters and Secret Service officers.

Shapiro argued this week that Chauvin — who is concurrently serving a 22.5-year state prison sentence after a local jury conviction for murder and a 21-year federal sentence after pleading guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights — was unable to get a fair trial due to the massive public interest in the case and cited alternative theories for Floyd’s cause of death.

Trump only has the power to pardon Chauvin on federal charges, meaning the former officer would not be released from prison.

“George Floyd was high on fentanyl; he had a significant pre-existing heart condition,” Shapiro said on his radio show Tuesday. “George Floyd was saying he could not breathe before he was even out of the car. He was in the car saying he could not breathe.”

In a public letter to Trump, Shapiro wrote that “there was no opportunity for blind justice to work, and a man is now rotting in prison because of it” and called Chauvin’s conviction “the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics.”

The idea of a pardon for Chauvin, which could trigger further unrest, was divisive among Trump supporters.

Rob Smith, a prominent black Trump supporter affiliated with Turning Point USA, slammed Shapiro’s suggestion, saying, “It is absolutely destructive. It makes no sense.

“Why did Ben Shapiro want to start this conversation right now?” he asked. “Who does this benefit? Doesn’t benefit Trump, doesn’t benefit America, doesn’t benefit race relations, doesn’t benefit anything.”