Word: pardoner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Little Leverage. Unless Congress recommends otherwise or Ford intervenes with a pardon (although a pardon before an indictment apparently is unprecedented), Nixon's most probable trial role may well be as a defendant. He conceivably could attempt to plea bargain with Jaworski, although he has little leverage remaining for that purpose, considering the evidence against him already on record and the fact that there is no higher official that Jaworski could seek to indict. Only a detailed admission of guilt, including his cover-up activities relating to such defendants as Ehrlichman, Haldeman and John Mitchell, would be likely...
...Within minutes of the resignation speech, Leon Jaworski pointedly announced that so far as Nixon's immunity from criminal prosecution was concerned, "the special prosecutor's office was not asked for any . . . and offered none." The next day, when reporters asked about the possibility of a future pardon should Nixon need one, new Press Secretary J.F. terHorst reiterated Gerald Ford's response at his vice-presidential confirmation hearing: "I do not think the public would stand for it." That judgment was made in other circumstances, and is surely subject to change as public attitudes toward Nixon become...
TIME did learn, however, that all last week negotiations went on between law yers of some cover-up defendants and the White House in hopes of arranging a pardon. Then at the last minute, said a source close to one defendant, "Nixon screwed us," and, properly and wisely, nothing was done for his former aides and agents. There was also speculation that Nixon could have pardoned himself, but Press Secretary terHorst reported that Nixon had taken no such in glorious, secret action before leaving office. Doubtless he had probably not even considered...
Without immunity or a pardon - and now without access to Government-paid attorneys - Nixon's legal fees could easily hit six figures. By resigning, the former President saved his annual retirement pay of $60,000, plus $96,000 a year for staff and expenses. Even without his retirement pay, though, the ex-President would by no means face penury. Literary Agent Scott Meredith (among his clients: Spiro Agnew, Norman Mailer) announced that he had already told an inquiring Nixon aide last month that the Nixon memoirs would probably be worth $2 million, which would more than comfortably cover...
...University of Chicago's constitutional expert, Philip Kurland, comes down against trying Nixon. "Under our system of criminal justice there is never absolute equality of treatment, and the trial of Nixon would be extremely divisive for the country." His Chicago colleague, Law Professor Gerhard Casper, thinks a Ford pardon would be an "act of grace." It remains to be seen whether that view will accurately distill into the mood of the nation in the months ahead...