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Conservative media figures are pushing Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murder in the 2020 killing of George Floyd that sparked widespread Black Lives Matter protests.
It seems the White House has taken notice.
Beginning this week, high-profile commentator Ben Shapiro will begin airing a docuseries called “The Case of Derek Chauvin,” part of a pardon push that began earlier this month and has now wracked up some 50,000 signatures on a petition.
A reprieve would be a watershed moment. In the aftermath of Floyd’s death, in which officers including Chauvin knelt on the man’s back and neck for minutes as he screamed he couldn’t breathe, some of the largest protests in U.S. history took place.
A pardon would only apply to Chauvin’s 21-year federal sentence, leaving his 22-and-a-half year state sentence from 2021 intact.
Shapiro has argued that Chauvin, who was convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges, then pleaded guilty to federal civil rights offenses, was put behind bars on “extraordinarily scanty evidence.”
The broadcaster argues that Floyd may have died from some combination of underlying health conditions, drug use, and excited delirium, a now-discredited pseudo-scientific diagnosis frequently invoked in police violence cases.
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During his state trial, the county medical examiner, who declared Floyd’s death a homicide, testified that it was the police restraint that ultimately killed Floyd, while drug use and heart disease were not “top line” causes.
Shapiro also claims Chauvin didn’t get a fair trial because of public attention around the death, and points to alleged issues like a juror who it was later revealed wore a Black Lives Matter t-shirt with the words “Get your knee off our necks” to a 2020 march.
The Supreme Court in 2023 rejected Chauvin’s attempts to appeal his state conviction.
Fellow right-wing broadcasters, including Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, have boosted Shapiro’s campaign.
Kirk interviewed Shapiro recently and called the aftermath of Floyd’s death the “gateway drug towards mass anarchy in the streets.”
It’s unclear where the Trump White House stands on the matter.
Earlier this month, when asked about the pardon push, Trump said, “I haven’t even heard about it.”
White House adviser Elon Musk, meanwhile, wrote on X a pardon was: “Something to think about.”
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In 2020, during the first Trump administration, the president initially condemned Floyd’s death, which set off nationwide racial justice protests and riots, though the Republican also used controversial tactics including riot police, tear gas, and federal agents in unmarked vehicles to crack down on those same protests.
“All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd,” said Trump in a speech at the time. “My administration is fully committed that, for George and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain.”
Trump, who has often framed himself as a pro-police and law and order candidate, has shown a willingness to pardon people tied to violent crime in the past.
Among his first acts in office upon was reelection was pardoning over 1,000 participants in the pro-Trump, January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, which led to multiple deaths and over 100 injured police officers.
