President Gerald Ford pardoned his immediate predecessor, Richard Nixon, of any crime committed in office on this day in 1974. He made no secret that it was a political matter, not one of criminal justice, telling the House Judiciary Committee that he did it to put the national debate over the Watergate scandal to bed. It’s a wonder he was ever in the position to do so, given how unlikely it was that he got to serve as president in the first place. It wasn’t just Nixon’s resignation that put Ford behind the Resolute Desk — eight months before that, Ford wasn’t even vice president.
Nixon had entered the White House in 1969 with Spiro Agnew, a former governor of Maryland, as his veep. Shortly after his second term began, Agnew was caught taking payments as part of a bribe scheme from his time as a state-level politician. The payments were still coming in while he was serving as vice president. Eventually, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and resigned his post. Nixon tapped Ford, the experienced leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, as his new second-in-command.
His pardon of Nixon has remained controversial among legal minds five decades on. On the one hand, it spared the country of a prolonged, agonizing, and embarrassing public trial. On the other, it was hard to argue Nixon hadn’t committed any crimes.
