President Joe Biden would pay a stiff price for pardoning Donald Trump
President Ford's pardon of former President Richard Nixon was proved disastrous
May 4, 2023
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
Re: “A modicum of greatness for ‘Ordinary’ Gerald Ford,” (Column by George Will, May 4, 2023)
To the Editor:
George Will errantly applauds President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon for undisputed crimes captured on White House tapes (sans the 18 ½ minute gap). The pardon was neither “statesmanlike” nor necessary to short-circuit “an inflammatory prosecution.” At that time, Mr. Nixon’s disapproval rating hovered at 65 percent with but 22 percent approving. He had already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up trial featuring H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and John Mitchell (Nixon’s pretorian guard). The American people overwhelming supported Mr. Nixon’s prosecution to avoid a dual system of justice where the impresario goes free, but his underlings go to jail. Thus, as Mr. Will notes, the pardon plunged President Ford’s job approval rating 22 points.
Mr. Nixon never acknowledged his criminal constitutional derelictions insisting to journalist David Frost in an interview, “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal,” the precursor to President Donald Trump’s monarchical proclamation, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” Imprisoning Mr. Nixon’s for his Watergate crimes as his chief subordinates were would have concentrated the minds wonderfully of his White House successors on scrupulously honoring their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution. Instead, Ford’s pardon planted the seeds of Trump’s constitutional lawlessness on an epic scale.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, 1981-83, and author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy
300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728; 703-963-4968 (M)
Email: bruce@feinpoints.com