Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of violence and self-harm. Reader discretion is advised.
President Donald Trump rejected any suggestion that he would step into the Lindsay Clancy case. He told reporters on Sunday that the matter belongs to Massachusetts. His brief remark — “There’s no winner there” — closed the door on a pardon request from Clancy’s defense team.
Donald Trump says ‘there’s no winner there’ as he leaves Clancy’s case to Massachusetts authorities
Donald Trump confirmed he would not issue a pardon for Lindsay Clancy, explaining that her first-degree murder charges fall under state law rather than federal jurisdiction. A president can only pardon federal crimes, which leaves him without legal authority over her prosecution. “There’s no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead,” he said, calling the situation “very sad.”
Trump also described the case as a “state situation, not a federal one,” making it clear that Massachusetts prosecutors and defense attorneys must resolve it themselves. The response followed a public plea from Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, who asked Trump last week to grant his client a pardon.
Reddington made the request during an interview with WBZ-TV, admitting Trump had no authority in a state matter but hoping the president could still sway the outcome.
The president had already weighed in on the case before the pardon request. He said Clancy would still have to “pay the price” for the deaths of her three children. “I assume there’s going to be another trial. It’s a terrible situation. Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse. But you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price. It’s going to be [a] mental institution or jail or something,” he said.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former nurse, faces three counts of first-degree murder in the 2023 deaths of her children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. After their deaths, she attempted to kill herself and was left paralyzed from her injuries. Her defense argued she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a severe but rare psychiatric condition causing a sudden loss of reality after childbirth.
Clancy now faces a potential retrial after jurors deadlocked following a full week of deliberations, prompting Judge William Sullivan to declare a mistrial earlier this month.
