Word: pardoner
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...unanimous finding that Nixon should be impeached because he obstructed justice, it would take a year or even longer "before the selection of a jury is begun." All during this agonizing period, Ford reasoned, he would be dogged by public questions about his views on Nixon and on a pardon. Said one of Ford's aides: "The longer it went on, the less candid it would compel him to be. He did not like not giving a straight answer just because it would be impolitic, and he knew he would have to do that...
...Ford's direction, Buchen worked throughout the Labor Day weekend to provide legal grounds for a pardon. He found precedents to establish that a pardon need not await an indictment or conviction. For example, he cited the case of a reporter who had been pardoned before testifying in a criminal action involving the customs department ?during the Wilson Administration...
From Labor Day onward, intense, highly secret discussions went on in the White House. Some of Ford's closest advisers warned him that granting a pardon would greatly damage him in the eyes of the public. Aides pointed to the Gallup poll released last week showing that 56% of the public believed that Nixon should be tried for possible criminal charges arising from Watergate, while only 37% opposed such action. But the President said, with an edge to his voice, "I don't need to read the polls to tell me whether I'm right...
...Tapes Deal. Last week Ford gave a delicate job to a longtime friend, Benton L. Becker, a Washington criminal lawyer. The President assigned him to travel to San Clemente last Thursday and show Nixon a preliminary draft of a Ford statement granting a pardon...
Watergate prosecutors regard the agreement as a quid pro quo for the pardon, but the White House denies it. On Saturday morning Becker delivered the agreement to the White House. Late that afternoon, Ford and several close advisers went over the final legal details of the pardon. He was still not completely sure that he would grant it, but, says one participant, "his mind was 95% made up." After that meeting, two old friends stayed behind with Ford. They were Buchen and Counsellor Robert Hartmann, whose long association with the President enables him to capture Ford's style and inner...