Category: Watergate

Why Mitt Romney’s Op-Ed Matters

By Kaleena Fraga

Many on the left are frustrated by Republicans like Jeff Flake, and now, Mitt Romney, who speak out against the president but support his policies. It’s easy to dismiss their speeches, articles, and tweets as empty politicking, meant to let them toe the line of Trump’s conservative base, while courting Republican voters who are dismayed at the behavior of the president.

This time, it’s different.

Mitt Romney’s forceful op-ed in the Washington Post called out the president for his behavior–for his diminishing of the office of the president. Yes, Romney will probably still vote for the Wall. He is a Republican, after all. But his words do matter. Why? Any impeachment vote is a likely given in the House, controlled by Democrats. The real battle will be in the chamber where Romney will sit, in the chamber controlled by Republicans. The Senate.

Impeachment is a political act, with political motivations. Yes, that’s not exactly what the founders intended, but that’s the form it’s taken. Andrew Johnson was impeached for breaking a law that Congress passed to spite him, and Bill Clinton faced impeachment over a stupid lie about a romantic affair–in other words, neither had committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution demands.

(Nixon, of course, got much closer to this bar, although his case came down to obstruction of justice. There is no physical evidence that Nixon himself ordered the break-in.)

In any case, an impeachment trial against President Trump in the Senate would require strong Republican support. Romney writes that Trump has not “risen to the mantle of the office.” This in itself is not a crime. But the politics of the moment could shift, giving the Republicans political reasons to think that removing the president would be the best thing for their party. In 1974, it took Barry Goldwater listing off names of Republicans and Southern Democrats who would vote for impeachment for Nixon to decide to resign.

Indeed, the founders left no provisions for what to do if the president is simply bad at being president. The 25th amendment does allow for the vice president, the Cabinet, and a majority of Congress to remove a president they see as unfit. This has never been invoked. If it were, dissident Republicans in the Senate would certainly be crucial to the cause.

After the Storm: Ford’s First Week as President

By Kaleena Fraga

When Richard Nixon departed the White House on August 9th, 1974, becoming the first president to resign from the office, he made Gerald Ford the first unelected president in American history.

As Nixon took off in his helicopter, Ford took the oath of office. After taking the oath, Ford gave a short speech which he said was not “an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech–just a little straight talk among friends.” Ford went onto say that he was well aware that he had not been elected by American ballots, but he hoped he would be confirmed through American prayers.

Then Ford uttered the words that became enshrined in American memory.

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

He continued:

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

Ford entered the White House with a list of issues to tackle. There was the Cold War, the end of the war in Vietnam, unrest in the Middle East, and inflation, among other things. Not to mention he had to define his presidency as independent from Nixon’s, while serving out the rest of Nixon’s second term.

Ford had to move his family into the White House; he had to address a divided and bitter nation; and he had to deal with the question that had been born even before he took the oath of office, of whether or not he should pardon Richard Nixon for any crimes associated with Watergate.

grf_leaves_home_a0180-07aFord and his family would not move to the White House until 10 days into his term, and in the meantime Ford would continue to commute from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. The images of Ford leaving his home, looking very much like a regular businessman on his way to work, and not the leader of the free world, obscures the reality of the heavy burden which had fallen on his shoulders. Betty Ford, who had remarked at the beginning of Ford’s political career that she was “unprepared to be a political wife” but was unworried because she “didn’t think he was going to win” would leave her own mark on the presidency and the role of First Lady. Only a month into the role she held her first press conference and answered questions about women in politics, abortions, and the Equal Rights Amendment. She would also bring awareness to breast cancer and addiction, acknowledging her struggles with both.

As the question of a Nixon pardon floated in the air–Alexander Haig, the chief of staff under Nixon and Ford had first broached the issue with the new president 10 days before Nixon’s resignation–one of Ford’s first acts as president was to address Congress. He did so three days after taking the oath of office.

“I am not here to make an inaugural address,” Ford said. “The nation needs action, not ford congresswords…my fellow Americans, we have a lot of work to do.” To Congress he said, “I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.” Ford, who had climbed the ropes in Washington as a member of Congress, seemed uniquely able to build such a relationship. Yet he would veto 66 bills passed by the Democratic Congress, many of which were then overridden by Congress–the largest percentage of overrides since Congress overrode Andrew Johnson’s vetoes following his unexpected ascension to the presidency.

Ford later reflected: “When I was in the Congress myself, I thought it fulfilled its constitutional obligations in a very responsible way, but after I became president, my perspective changed.”

The decision to pardon Nixon came about a month after Ford took office, and was initially met with outrage and opposition from the country and from many of Watergate’s main players. Although Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein initially met the news of the pardon with dismay, they much later acknowledged that Ford had made the right choice. Woodward called the pardon “an act of political courage”, with Bernstein agreeing that the pardon took “great courage.”

Despite the retrospective, Ford erased any good will he may have had in his first weeks in the presidency by pardoning Nixon. He set himself up for a tough reelection, in which he would be challenged by a right-leaning upstart named Ronald Reagan, and would eventually lose to Democrat Jimmy Carter.