Watergate scandal

== President Ford's pardon of Nixon ==
{{further|Pardon of Richard Nixon}}
[[File:"Pardon" Pen.jpg|thumb|Pen used by President Gerald R. Ford to pardon Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974]]
{{wikisource|Proclamation 4311|The Nixon Pardon}}

With Nixon's resignation, Congress dropped its impeachment proceedings. Criminal prosecution was still a possibility at the federal level.<ref name=TimeLegal/> Nixon was [[Inauguration of Gerald Ford|succeeded by]] Vice President [[Gerald Ford]] as president, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional [[pardon]] of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as president.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ford.utexas.edu/LIBRARY/speeches/740061.htm |title=Gerald Ford's Proclamation Granting a Pardon to Richard Nixon |website=Ford.utexas.edu |access-date=June 17, 2010 |archive-date=June 6, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606105602/http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/740061.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country. He said that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."<ref name="pardonspeech2">{{Cite web |url=http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/ford.htm |title=Gerald R. Ford Pardoning Richard Nixon |last=Ford |first=Gerald |date=September 8, 1974 |website=Great Speeches Collection |publisher=The History Place |access-date=December 30, 2006 |archive-date=May 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501035624/http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/ford.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Nixon continued to proclaim his innocence until his death in 1994. In his official response to the pardon, he said that he "was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fulton |first=Mary Lou |url=https://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-17/news/ss-339_1_richard-nixon/2 |title=Nixon Library : Nixon Timeline |date=July 17, 1990 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=July 28, 2014 |page=2 |archive-date=August 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812172222/http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-17/news/ss-339_1_richard-nixon/2 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Some commentators have argued that pardoning Nixon contributed to President Ford's loss of the [[1976 United States presidential election|presidential election of 1976]].<ref name="shanescott">{{Cite news |last=Shane |first=Scott |title=For Ford, Pardon Decision Was Always Clear-Cut |date=December 29, 2006 |work=The New York Times |page=A1}}</ref> Allegations of a secret deal made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the [[House Judiciary Committee]] on October 17, 1974.<ref name="Gettlin, Robert; Colodny, Len 1991 420">{{Cite book |last1=Gettlin, Robert |url=https://archive.org/details/silentcoupremova00colo/page/420 |title=Silent Coup: The Removal of a President |last2=Colodny, Len |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=1991 |isbn=0-312-05156-5 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/silentcoupremova00colo/page/420 420] |oclc=22493143}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ford, Gerald R. |title=A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford |url=https://archive.org/details/timetohealautobi0000ford |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1979 |isbn=0-06-011297-2 |location=San Francisco |pages=[https://archive.org/details/timetohealautobi0000ford/page/196 196]–199 |oclc=4835213}}</ref>

In his autobiography ''A Time to Heal'', Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, [[Alexander Haig]]. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process, to try to settle for a censure vote in Congress, or to pardon himself and then resign. Haig told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.

{{blockquote|Haig emphasized that these weren't ''his'' suggestions. He didn't identify the staff members and he made it very clear that he wasn't recommending any one option over another. What he wanted to know was whether or not my overall assessment of the situation agreed with his. [emphasis in original]&nbsp;... Next he asked if I had any suggestions as to courses of actions for the President. I didn't think it would be proper for me to make any recommendations at all, and I told him so.|[[Gerald Ford]], ''A Time to Heal''<ref>Ford (1979), 4.</ref>}}