Richard Ben-Veniste Quotes

When you look at the Nixon pardon, the short-term gain would have been never to pardon him.

Mr. Ford's decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he might have been charged with because of Watergate is seen by many historians as the central event of his 896-day presidency.

[Gerald Rudolph ] Ford pardoned Richard Nixon to save everybody that, and the Democrats were ticked about it.

Few dramas in American political history remain more riveting than that of Nixon's exit and Mr. Ford's reaction, at first halting and then decisive, to the looming possibility of a former president on criminal trial for months on end.

When Richard M. Nixon resigned and Ford became the 38th president of the United States, the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office, of which I was a member, was preparing for the criminal trials of Nixon's top aides - H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell.

Now, 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.

In many ways when Jerry Ford pardoned Nixon, in a certain way, he did speak for the country.

Presidential power was overruled by the high bench in July 1974, when President Nixon was ordered to turn over some audio tapes of his White House conversations, including the 'smoking gun' tape of June 23, 1972, that revealing the Watergate cover up.

Richard Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Gerald Ford as his revenge.

[Referring to Richard Nixon:] Either impeach him or get off his back.

That could have been a very successful Presidency had President Nixon really believed in our system.

Gerald Ford is one of the relatively few living Americans who not only admires Richard Nixon, but actually likes him.

I said in a speech out in Peoria that with Jerry in as vice president, the pressures on Nixon to resign would be unbearable. I know that Republicans see 50 House seats flying out the window in 1974.

I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon.

At bottom, the decision to pardon Nixon was a political judgment properly within the bounds of Ford's constitutional authority. The specter of a former president in the criminal dock as our country moved into its bicentennial year was profoundly disturbing.

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.

The French were mystified about the Watergate scandal.

I was very young, and I remember this heated, passionate argument and trying to figure out some place called Vietnam, something called a Watergate, and some guy named Gerald Ford who my dad knew who had just become president, and how all these things fit together.

Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.

President Nixon has lost his effectiveness as the leader of this country, primarily because he has lost the confidence of the people.

I’m not your lawyer. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell the President to burn the tapes immediately and then proclaim he’d done so as a matter of national security and executive privilege and out of an obligation to protect the office of the presidency.

I don't believe Richard Nixon ... ever shall be totally exonerated. While it's true he's been pardoned for any Federal crimes he may have committed as President, he can't escape the judgement of history.

History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents. Carter, Ford and Nixon. See no evil, hear no evil and evil.

I just knew in my heart that it was not right for Dick Nixon to ever be the President of this country.

If I’ve done nothing else for the country, I’ve saved them from Dick Nixon.