Richard Ben-Veniste Quotes
Gerald R. Ford was a decent and honorable man. Under his steady hand, the nation began the process of recovering from the terrible trauma of Watergate - the lies, distortions, cover-ups, misuses of federal agencies to exact political revenge, illegal wiretapping, burglaries.
Ben-Veniste, Richard. "A Premature Pardon." The Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2006.
This was one of the best confirmations that Nixon had authorized illegal activity to further his reelection prospects and then orchestrated a cover up of the crimes.
Nixon had lied to Ford as well as the American people. Ford, having been selected by Nixon as VP, felt it was his obligation to defend Nixon until he was about to become President himself. At that point he would have destroyed his presidential credibility on top of Nixon if he kept on with the Nixon lies.
When Nixon was running for President in the 1968 Presidential campaign, he learned from Henry Kissinger that the Johnson administration had made an agreement with the Russians and North Vietnamese that America would stop the bombing of North Vietnam if there would be Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War. Nixon feard that although the polls showed him ahead of Vice President Humphrey, the announcement of ongoing peace talks would bring many of the anti-war Democrats who were not supporting Humphrey because of the Vietnam War out to vote for Humphrey to support the Peace Talks. Nixon decided to sabatouge the Peace Talks by persuading Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu not to come to the peace table so there coulod be no talks. He accomplished this by having Anna Chennault, an extreme right-wing fund raiser who was the widow of General Chennault of Glying tiger fame and who had connections with all the right wing politicans in Asia, get word to President Thieu that President Johnson would sell him out in the peace upcomming peace talks, and that if he would boycott the peace talks till after the American Presidential election, Nixon as the New President would be sure that Thieu would remain in control of South Vietnam or there would be no peace and America would continue the war until the North Vienamese would agree to a peace that kept Thieu in power. Earlier, Nixon had appointed Anna Chennault as the Offical Spokesperson of the Campaign on Asia. What Nixon did was a felony--private citizens are not alowed to intere with government negotiatons or discussions with foreign governments under the Logan Act. Many think that the action was legally Treason. Hoever, Nguyen VanThieu did boycott the peace talks despite all the entreaties of President Johnson and his administration. There were no peace talks and the public never even knew that there had been this attempt. The anti-Vietnam War voters mostly did not vote and Nixon won a close race. Shortly after the election, before Nixon could be sworn in, via the FBI, Johnson learned of Chennault's activities but thee was no evidence to tie Nixon to the South Vietnam refusal to come to the peace table. It never became a public issue although several leading politicians had learned what had really occured--see Quotation 664238. However, 0ver 40 years later, when Nizon's Chief of Staff's notes were finally made public, the smoking gun was dislosed and Farrell wrote this in his 2017 Biography of Richard Nixon. See Related Quotes for quotations from H. R. Haldman's hadnwritten notes of his phone call with Nixon, and other evidence that had also been uncovered.
Weyrich and many other extreme religious conservatives are often loose with legal and political facts. Actually President Clinton was impeached by the Republican Controlled House of Representatives, but was acquitted by the Senate which decided that he was not guilty of what his political enemies had accused him of or those things were not of sufficient import to warrant impeachment. What Weyrich probably meant was that if there had been a moral majority in America, Clinton would have been convicted and removed from office. Ironically, the Republican Speaker of the House which impeached Clinton had been Newt Gingrich, who abandoned his first wife and was having an affair with a staff member. Livingston who was then elected speaker of the House also was committing adultery as were many in the group who found Clinton morally wanting for his sexual activity with am intern and his attempted coverup. They too, tried to cover up their scandalous behavior.
President George W. Bush, to justify the invasion of Iraq had told the public that the Iraqi regime was developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and had participated in the September 11 attack on the United States by assisting Al Qaeda. It turned out that these statements were false. The administration claimed that their error was well intentioned and the result of faulty intelligence. Opponents claimed that the administration officials knew that they were exaggerating and had pressured the intelligence agencies to create intelligence conclusions that supported their story.
Richard Ben-Veniste is an American lawyer. He first rose to prominence as a special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. He has also been a member of the 9/11 Commission. He is known for his pointed questions and criticisms of members of both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In 2017, he became a CNN Legal Analyst.
