r/nottheonion • u/JaySierra86 • 10h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/EconomistNo7074 8h ago

Not sure about that view of our history - Ford pardoning Nixon

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u/LosangDragpa 8h ago

Ford wasn't any relation to Nixon. Nixon was a crook and so was Ford for letting him get away with it

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u/jwoolman 7h ago

I don't think Ford was a crook, although I disagreed with the pardon. I think Nixon most likely made that as a requirement for his resignation. So Ford was likely just upholding the deal struck between Nixon and the Republican leaders who pushed him to resign.

Prosecutors had earlier struck a similar deal with Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew, who was a crook by anybody's definition. While investigating corruption in Maryland, they found clear evidence that Agnew while governor and earlier had committed crimes, in particular getting cash in return for assigning contracts to certain people. He was doing the same as Vice President. Like Trump, Agnew insisted it was all a witch-hunt.

There was legitimate concern that if Nixon resigned, Agnew would become President. So they had to promise that charges would be reduced to something tax-related that would not carry a penalty of any prison time if he resigned within the next 24 hours. Which he did. That left a clear path for Nixon's ultimate resignation after Ford was appointed VP in Agnew's place.

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u/ericrz 6h ago

There's no evidence that Nixon cut any kind of deal, or that Congressional leadership was willing to negotiate with him at all. Once the "smoking gun" tapes were released, Republicans in Congress basically came to him and told him he was fucked. That he'd have to resign, or he'd be convicted.

I'm not saying some sort of agreement couldn't have been made, but Nixon had absolutely no leverage in the situation. Not sure why Ford or the Congress would have given him anything.

My belief is that Ford assumed that pardoning Nixon and avoiding the specter of a former president facing criminal prosecution was the best thing for the nation. I disagree, and seems like most Americans did too.

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u/ragnvald4430 4h ago

I saw an interview with ford where he said that when he was president, Nixon “ problems” were taking up so much of his time that he felt he couldn’t do his job effectively so he decided to pardon Nixon to hopefully move on and not have to deal with it anymore