Reply #97: The old strategy of pardoning the guy before you [View All]

[DrDebug]

That is why Ford was vice president under Nixon, because he had already proven that he was able to cover up the JFK assassination which meant that he was not only up for promotion, but that he could once again be relied upon to cover up for Nixon and that is exactly what he did by pardonning Nixon.

President Gerald Ford Speech - Pardoning Richard Nixon

On September 8, 1974, one month after President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency amid the Watergate scandal, his successor, President Gerald R. Ford, announced his decision to grant Nixon a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed while in office.

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/ford.htm

Reagan-Bush was different of course, because even though Reagan technically won the primaries, it was clear that Bush was going to be in charge and that's exactly what he did for the next eight years.

Quayle was another weird vice president, but the reason for his candidacy is already listed above and just like Ford he was appointed to clean up after Bush if necessary. Lucky for him he didn't need to because Bush pardonned his buddies in the various scandals after he lost the elections to Clinton.

But still who was going pardon Bush? How about Bush pardonning Bush?

Washington Post, November 1, 2001
Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez

The Bush White House has drafted an executive order that would usher in a new era of secrecy for presidential records and allow an incumbent president to withhold a former president's papers even if the former president wanted to make them public.

The five page draft would also require members of the public seeking particular documents to show "at least a demonstrated, specific need" for them before they would be considered for release.

Historians and others who have seen the proposed order called it unprecedented and said it would turn the 1978 Presidential Records Act on its head by allowing such materials to be kept secret "in perpetuity."

Under the order, incumbent and former presidents "could keep their records locked up for as long as they want", said Bruce Craig, Executive Director of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History. "It reverses the very premise of the Presidential Records Act, which provides for a systematic release of presidential records after 12 years.”….

"Absent compelling circumstances," the incumbent president will concur in the former president's privilege decision, the draft order states. But if the incumbent president does not agree on a former president's decision to grant access, "the incumbent president may independently order the archivist to withhold privileged records".

The order would work "like a one-way ratchet," said Scott Nelson, an attorney for the Public Citizen Litigation Group. "If the former president says the records are privileged, they will remain secret even if the sitting president disagrees. If the sitting president says they should be privileged, they remain secret even if the former president disagrees."

http://www.newsmakingnews.com/vm,deadly,1991,11,1,04,pt4.htm

( 2001 - 12 = 1989 = start of George H.W. Bush presidency )

Even in the rare case that Senior gets a change of heart and suddenly develops a conscience, it is no longer possible to know what he did as a president, because Junior simply denies him access to his own files. After all Dick Cheney is running the place and worked with Poppy as well and he doesn't want the truth to emerge...