Word: pardoner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...woman can claim entitlement. Nor does the pardon really end Nixon's suffering. He must still testify in the conspiracy trial and can be prosecuted if he fails to testify truthfully...
Gradually, and chiefly through Buchen, there emerged some additional but still unsatisfactory explanations of the Ford decision. When Ford contended at his Aug. 28 press conference that it would be "unwise and untimely" for him to pardon Nixon before any charges had been brought against him, aides said that he was simply unaware he had the power to pardon before indictment, trial and conviction. Just two days later, on Aug. 30, he asked Buchen to study that question. Buchen quickly discovered, as any reader of informed legal speculation in newspaper accounts at the time had also learned, that Presidents...
Single Indictment. The Ford aides said that they could not explain his insertion of a reference to Nixon's health in the pardon announcement. The advance text did not contain it. They were aware that Ford had been concerned about published reports of Nixon's moody emotional state, but they insisted that neither the physical nor mental health of the former President was the major influence on the timing of the pardon...
There were problems with these explanations. The presidential pardoning power, including Nixon's authority to pardon him self before leaving office, had been widely discussed, so it seemed unlikely that Ford was all that unaware of his authority. Jaworski, moreover, was not poised to throw the book at Nixon. He was prepared to seek a single indictment for conspiring to obstruct justice in the cover-up?but not until the conspiracy-trial jury had been selected and sequestered. To the contrary, Jaworski had submitted to the White House, at Buchen's request, a memo from his top deputy, Henry...
...genuine compassion for Nixon, Ford took a superficial look at the other factors?the legal ramifications, the political impact, the public reaction?and failed to think them through. Buoyed by his Honeymoon reception and seeking a Trumanesque reputation for decisiveness, he acted immediately and impulsively on his determination to pardon Nixon. If eventually he was going to pardon him, as he had in effect indicated he would in his Aug. 28 press conference, then why not now? A diehard defender of Nixon's innocence until the ample contrary evidence became unchallengeable, Ford by this theory appreciated neither the seriousness...