Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ford’s pardon of Nixon created a bad precedent
nevadacurrent ^ | 09/19/2023 | MARSHALL H. TANICK

Posted on 09/20/2023 5:51:52 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

Most of former President Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have given full-throated support for him in his current criminal travails, even saying they would pardon him if he is convicted of any – or all – of the 90-something charges.

The notion that a president could be pardoned for criminal offenses would have been unthinkable at one time. But the precedent for doing so — which helps fuel the blessing given to a Trump pardon by his GOP opponents — occurred about a half century ago.

On a September Sunday in 1974, President Gerald R. Ford issued a “full, free and absolute” pardon to his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon.

The pardon took place within a month of Nixon’s resignation and the corresponding elevation of Ford.

The pardon shared the news cycle with another event of epic proportions that day: Daredevil Evel Knievel’s highly-vaunted motorcycle leap across the chasm of the Snake River Canyon in Idaho.

The stuntman heavily promoted his plan to traverse a span of the river at the bottom of the gorge, in a souped-up rocket-powered motorcycle. It was the kind of “can’t miss” event that attracted a great deal of attention,

He plunged into the river 500 feet below, due to what was deemed to be a parachute malfunction, although he suffered only minor injuries and continued his daring events until his death in 2007

(Excerpt) Read more at nevadacurrent.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: biden; ford; nixon; pardon; precedent
Ford did the right thing. This Marshall idiot is projecting this on to Trump being pardoned by a R president at some point
1 posted on 09/20/2023 5:51:52 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

(((YAWN))) I wonder if his parents or grandparents told this clown about Ford and Nixon.


2 posted on 09/20/2023 5:58:57 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer ("Try That In A Small Town" - Jason Aldean rules!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

It is one of the things I give Ford credit for. Also, even though the SS Mayaguez incident turned into a bit of a disaster, sadly, I give him credit for that as well. That was decidedly an unpopular thing to do, as we had just recently fallen and the American public was, on the surface, done with things over there.


3 posted on 09/20/2023 5:59:55 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

Must a pardon be accepted to be in effect, also isn’t accepting a pardon an admission of guilt?

I don’t need any snarky answers, I’m genuinely ignorant on these matters.


4 posted on 09/20/2023 6:00:38 AM PDT by Graybeard58 (There are only two sexes, male and female but there are 57 different types of queers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

Trump lives in their heads 24/7....still.


5 posted on 09/20/2023 6:05:42 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58
Must a pardon be accepted to be in effect, also isn’t accepting a pardon an admission of guilt?

Yes, it must be accepted (i.e., it can be rejected by the proposed recipient).

It does NOT constitute an admission of guilt.

It can extend for any crime which the proposed recipient may have committed (i.e., can be issued even before any criminal charges have been filed).

The Presidential Pardon pertains ONLY to federal offenses.

A pardon can be general or conditional or partial.

See also the similar but distinct concepts of amnesty and commutation of sentence.

Regards,

6 posted on 09/20/2023 6:10:05 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

I still have my bracelet for Joseph Nelson Hargrove. MIA 5/15/75


7 posted on 09/20/2023 6:14:05 AM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

What no one tells you is Daniel Elsberg was a nuclear weapon designer at Los Alamos and he kind of lost his mind.
They were worried he was going to jump ship to the Soviets.
This was the real reason for the break in.


8 posted on 09/20/2023 6:17:45 AM PDT by Zathras
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

I relalized the author is partisan leftist (dont care what party he claims) loon when I read this sentence:

“ Had Nixon suffered the fate of ‘other’ common criminals…’

Common criminals have the following traits:
Anti-social values. This is also known as criminal thinking. ...
Criminal Peers. Individuals with this trait often have peers that are associated with criminal activities. ...
Anti-social personality. ...
Dysfunctional family. ...
Low self-control. ...
Substance abuse.
From Oricainfo.com

Nixon had NONE none of these traits. He was a brilliant, highly educated, well spoken, driven man who committed crimes (alleged) paltry in comparison to what Biden is accused of.


9 posted on 09/20/2023 6:17:53 AM PDT by Phoenix8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer
Right. Gramps sure didn't explain that the Clintons/Bidens/O’Bozo’s have done more (and worse) than Nixon ever DREAMED of doing!

In the meantime, Nixon is forever smeared but the Clinton/Biden/O’bozo clowns sanctimoniously set themselves up as irreproachable models of honesty and integrity!

10 posted on 09/20/2023 6:21:52 AM PDT by SMARTY (“Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.” Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Zathras

Ellsberg was a PhD economist with a specialty in Decision Theory worked for the RAND Corporation, the Pentagon, MIT, etc. Did nuclear strategy planning at RAND, became disaffected with the Vietnam War. here’s the wiki link, not too far from wrong!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg


11 posted on 09/20/2023 6:26:08 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

This guy is a leftie TDS clown. Feel free to ignore him.


12 posted on 09/20/2023 6:28:35 AM PDT by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SMARTY

Ford-elected. He should of taken himself out for ‘76. Let Reagan have at it.

The pardon was right when Evil Kineval was in the news. We seem to forget.
Mayaguez happened right after Viet Nam fell. Took out some of the sting.
Reagan invaded Greneda right after Beruit was bombed killing 150+ marines.

Politics-it’s timed.
BJ bombed Sudan when Monica testified.
Ted Kennedy & Joanne divorce announcement when our Iran hostages were released.

Conclusion: the democrats are better at it.


13 posted on 09/20/2023 6:34:07 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (e allowed )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: SMARTY

You nailed it. One of the real problems I have with the far-left Neanderthals.


14 posted on 09/20/2023 6:35:06 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer ("Try That In A Small Town" - Jason Aldean rules!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

Nixon. Did he or did he not bring on his own problems?

The left and the media treated Bush 43 the same. Bush turned the other cheek so I’d say the media won. The only one that was treated worse was Dan Quayle-not ready for prime time.


15 posted on 09/20/2023 6:44:03 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (e allowed )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: ComputerGuy

Those poor men… going on such an ill-fated mission, though being done for all the right reasons.

Nobody wanted to be the one to die at all, even less to be the last one to die in Vietnam.

You remember them, as shall I.


16 posted on 09/20/2023 6:56:18 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

Just read up on it. Shocking what happened to the 3 men left behind. 1 shot and the other 2 executed “by beating with a RPG tube” basically executed by torture. Order after he went back to Cambodia by the top Khmer leadership.

All the while the Khmer Rouge were murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians in the “Killing Fields”.

We should have launched a mass B-52 incendiary attack on the largest City with the most loyalty to the Khmer as revenge.


17 posted on 09/20/2023 7:16:37 AM PDT by Phoenix8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

Ford didn’t pardon Nixon because he deserved pardoning, he pardoned him because there wasn’t a court in the known universe where he might got a fair trial.

Pardoning Nixon ended the distraction of the campaign to crucify Tricky Dickie and let the government get back to its real job. As bad as the consequences from that act might have been, the alternatives all probably would have been worse, both for Nixon and the country.

Nixon, if you didn’t know, had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in before the fact. But he was a proud man who’d withstood many years being shat upon by the press. Since he didn’t order the break-in, he couldn’t conceive that his minions would have executed it without warning him first. So when the accusations came to his doorstep, his opening position was, “didn’t do it, wasn’t there, you can’t prove a thing” (apologies to Bart Simpson).

Backing down from that position only would have encouraged his detractors in the press, and his (alleged) criminality came in the cover-up that followed.


18 posted on 09/20/2023 7:54:47 AM PDT by threefinger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Phoenix8

Those poor men. I agree with you completely.

This has always bothered me.

Men are killed all the time in war, but...these men were left behind, and the feeling of abandoment and loneliness, left to the hands of those beasts even until today, fills me with an aching sadness for them.


19 posted on 09/20/2023 2:09:23 PM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

It speaks volumes how evil the Khmer Rouge communists were. Obviously to genocide but to take two legit POWs and by order of the General/president to officially execute by torture. That sort of thing is usually carried out by a Rogue officer or lawless soldiers. Socialists on the other hand seem to do this as par of the course.

They even started it with the illegal seizure of the ship.


20 posted on 09/20/2023 3:17:42 PM PDT by Phoenix8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson