{"id":20308,"date":"2024-08-13T08:25:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T12:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=20308"},"modified":"2024-08-13T08:45:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T12:45:10","slug":"nixons-resignation-and-americas-impunity-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/13\/nixons-resignation-and-americas-impunity-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Nixon\u2019s Resignation and America\u2019s Impunity Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nixon\u2019s Resignation and America\u2019s Impunity Democracy<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard, August 13, 2024<\/p>\n

August 8 was the fiftieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon\u2019s resignation. Unfortunately, that anniversary spurred little reflections or lamentations on how lawless the federal government has become in the subsequent half century.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aside from his Watergate abuses, Nixon was guilty of illegally invading a foreign country (Cambodia), perpetuating the war in Vietnam for political purposes and his 1972 reelection campaign, violating the rights of tens of thousands of Americans with the illegal FBI COINTELPRO program, sanctioning CIA violence and subversion around the globe, and many other offenses. Nixon also created Amtrak.<\/p>\n

The friends of Leviathan have benefited immensely from obscuring, if not burying, most of the crimes of the Nixon era. The more clearly people recalled Nixon\u2019s abuses, the more difficult it would be to sway them to accept that government is inherently benevolent and trustworthy. The media\u2019s Nixon rendition routinely starts and stops at Watergate. I<\/strong>t is typical of the establishment media to treat a crime against a competing political party as a graver offense than the trampling of the rights of tens of thousands of Americans.<\/p>\n

Nixon resigned because he knew that he would be demolished in a Senate trial. But President Gerald Ford compounded the damage from Nixon\u2019s presidency when he issued a sweeping pardon of his predecessor that practically condemned future generations of Americans to being governed by lawless presidents.<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s rationale for the pardon deserves a place in the pantheon of American political bullshit.<\/strong> In his televised announcement of the pardon, Ford declared that, if Nixon were put on trial, \u201cthe credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.\u201d Ford also claimed that pro<\/strong>secuting Nixon would banish<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe tranquility\u00a0to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks\u201d after Nixon resigned.<\/strong> But Ford\u2019s action made it easier for subsequent presidents to disturb \u201ctranquility\u201d and practically everything else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many people assume that President Ford pardoned Nixon only for Watergate. In reality, Ford\u2019s pardon was so sweeping\u2014forgiving Nixon for any and every possible crime he may have committed\u2014that it would have exempted Nixon even from charges of genocide:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cNow, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ford\u2019s pardon effectively closed the book on holding Nixon culpable for his crimes against the Constitution, Americans, and millions of other people around the world<\/strong>. Ford\u2019s pardon of Nixon set a precedent of absolute immunity for the president for all crimes committed in office. Ford\u2019s pardon proclaimed a new doctrine in American law and politics\u2014that one president can absolve another president of all his crimes and all his killings. His pardon signaled the formal end of the rule of law in America.<\/p>\n

The lesson that Ford\u2019s top advisors seemed to draw from the pardon is that the government can break the law with impunity. Ford\u2019s former chief of staff, Dick Cheney, brought this doctrine into the W. Bush administration, where it helped unleash torture around the world.<\/p>\n

If Nixon had been publicly tried and a full accounting of his abuses made to the American public, it may have been far more difficult for subsequent presidents to cover up their crimes. Politicians remembering Nixon\u2019s punishment and humiliation might have been slower to lie the nation into unnecessary foreign wars. If Ford was hell-bent on pardoning his benefactor, he should have had the decency to wait until the evidence was on the table.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s expansive use of the pardon helped pave the way for George H.W. Bush\u2019s Iran-Contra pardons <\/span><\/a>which largely demolished the investigation of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh. On Christmas Eve 1992, Bush pardoned six Reagan<\/span><\/a> administration officials for their roles in Iran-Contra<\/span><\/a>, the illegal arms-for-hostage deal that blighted the final years of Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency. Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was scheduled to go on trial two weeks later on charges of lying to Congress. University of California Professor Eric Rauchway declared that Bush\u2019s \u201cpardons did more to enable future criminal<\/span><\/a> presidencies even than Gerald Ford\u2019s pardon of Richard Nixon.\u201d If Walsh\u2019s investigation had led to Bush\u2019s conviction, the Bush brand name might have been sufficiently damaged that no other Bush could have ascended to the presidency.<\/p>\n

President Bill Clinton built on those precedents to issue a deluge of pardons in his final day of office, including for two former cabinet members, his brother Roger, fellow Whitewater operative Susan McDougal (whose silence helped save Clinton), and former Congressman Mel Reynolds<\/span><\/a> (convicted of having sex with a sixteen-year-old campaign volunteer as well as bank fraud and wire fraud). Slate<\/i> denounced Clinton\u2019s pardon for fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, who had been indicted for tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and trading with the enemy, as \u201cthe most unjust presidential pardon in American history.\u201d Rich\u2019s pardon was facilitated by Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder<\/span><\/a>, who slipped the pardon effort past normal Justice Department checks and balances. (Holder was reportedly the key operative in selecting the vice presidential candidate of Kamala Harris this month.)<\/p>\n

Trump issued a deluge of pardons in his final weeks in office that added to his notoriety, including 143 in his final day. Trump pardoned political crooks, foreign agents, some of his prominent supporters, and a founder of Death Row Records. A White House press release justified the pardon of Detroit\u2019s notoriously corrupt mayor Kwame Kilpatrick because he <\/b> \u201chas taught public speaking classes and has led Bible Study<\/span><\/a> groups with his fellow inmates.\u201d Plus, the dude is from a swing state in the next presidential election.<\/p>\n

If Friedrich Hayek was still around, he might update his famous chapter on \u201cWhy the Worst Get on Top\u201d with a few paragraphs on the pardon power of American presidents. Ford\u2019s blanket pardon of Nixon helped turn America into an impunity democracy in which rulers pay no price for their misdeeds. Presidential pardons often preclude truth: the odds of learning the facts about official outrages decline by 98% after the threat of prosecution is removed.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nixon\u2019s Resignation and America\u2019s Impunity Democracy by James Bovard, August 13, 2024 August 8 was the fiftieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon\u2019s resignation. Unfortunately, that anniversary spurred little reflections or lamentations on how lawless the federal government has become in the subsequent half century. Aside from his Watergate abuses, Nixon was guilty of illegally invading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3194,10,51,432,290,2583,2584,4283,245,4282,708],"class_list":["post-20308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amtrak","tag-bush","tag-clinton","tag-eric-holder","tag-gerald-ford","tag-iran-contra","tag-marc-rich","tag-mel-reynolds","tag-nixon","tag-pardon","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nNixon\u2019s Resignation and America\u2019s Impunity Democracy - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gerald Ford's blanket pardon of every crime committed by Richard Nixon helped turn America into an Impunity Democracy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/13\/nixons-resignation-and-americas-impunity-democracy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nixon\u2019s Resignation and America\u2019s Impunity Democracy - 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