But what people may not remember is what a surprise it was at the time that it happened. A month earlier, nixon had famously resigned the president under the threat of impeachment, and he left the white house aboard marine one, handing the presidency off to his Vice President , gerald ford. As donald rumsfeld, george w. Bushs defense secretary, who served in the ford administration, later recalled, those of us close enough to observe it ourselves could see how tormented ford was by the decision. And when he finally made it, it caught many of us by surprise. It was a surprise because fords pardon came on a sunday morning, september 8th, 1974. As the times reported, quote, government buildings were almost empty, and no one was expecting any dramatic president ial action. Mr. Ford attended Early Morning communion at st. Johns episcopal church, then returned to the white house to make the announcement. And i have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, richard nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs 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. Now, that surprise decision generated immediate backlash. On a trip to pittsburgh the following day, ford was greeted by crowds of hostile protesters outside the venue where he was due to speak. Protesters held up signing excoriating him for his decision, and they booed the president. When he left the hotel, mr. Ford found the crowd of demonstrators had grown considerably, and he was booed. There also were some cheers. [ crowd booing ] on the flight back to washington, the president declined to talk to reporters about the pardon. His Spokesman Says the president knew the pardon would be controversial and was aware of the reaction. A white house switchboard operator told the president last night the volume of calls was very heavy and kind of unfavorable. Ford would go on to lose the 1976 election to jimmy carter in large part because of that decision. And since then, other president ial pardons have generated controversy. Now, following his 1992 election loss, george h. W. Bush pardoned Reagan Defense secretary Casper Weinberger and five others for their role in the irancontra scandal. Bill clinton generated immense outrage for his pardoning of financier mark rich on the final day of his presidency. But no president ial pardon has been less surprising than the one issued today when to absolutely nobodys surprise, President Trump announced his controversial decision to offer a full pardon to his First National security adviser, Michael Flynn. Flynn, as you recall, a former threestar general, has become a cause celebre on the right for trump devotees, conspiracy theorists, and republicans at large. All argue that flynn was somehow the target of a deepstate plot by the Obama Administration and an unfair prosecution by special counsel robert mueller, all of which ignores the fact that flynn himself admitted under oath two times in court to lying to fbi agents about his discussions with the Russian Ambassador to washington during the transition and that he once served as a cooperating witness as part of the mueller investigation. It was trump, after all, who fired flynn from his job just three weeks into his tenure as National Security adviser after president obama explicitly warned trump about hiring him in the first place. And it was Michael Flynn specifically, trumps pressuring of fbi director james comey to, quote, let the flynn case go, that actually resulted in the appointment of the special counsel, robert mueller. Today the white house announced that, quote, the president has pardoned general flynn because he should never have been prosecuted. But nothing could be further from the truth. Its important to remember what it was exactly that flynn did and why it was so problematic. Remember, flynn came under fbi suspicious in the summer of 2016, right around the time that he was encouraging lock her up chants at the Republican National convention, and the investigation was part of the fbis look into the russian hack of the Democratic National committee. Flynn was scrutinized early on by the fbi because of his coziness with the russian regime, including a trip to russia where he sat alongside vladimir putin. And also because of his recent business dealings with russian entities. But it was actually flynns lies to fbi agents about his discussions with russia during the transition that constituted a direct threat to u. S. National security. Remember, the United States had just seen its election attacked by russia. Following the election, the Obama Administration announced targeted sanctions against russia to punish them for this behavior. But instead of reprimanding russia for its brazen attacks on the u. S. Election in an effort to help trump, flynn told russia not to worry about it. He signaled that the Trump Administration planned to do nothing about it and might perhaps roll back those punishing economic sanctions once in office. Now, fbi intercepts of calls between flynn and the ambassador revealed that flynn repeatedly reassured russia on this point and that those sanctions were the central topic of discussion between the two men. So of course the fbi was going to investigate this behavior, especially once flynn lied about it to fbi agents. Remember, they had it on tape. They knew it. He said that no such discussions had taken place. So how could the fbi not investigate that . He was lying to them about something they knew to be true. Not only was flynn now subject to russian blackmail on account of his lies to the fbi and to Vice President mike pence, the overtures to the russians themselves from the incoming Trump Administration were hugely problematic. During testimony this summer, former acting attorney general sally yates, who first blew the whistle on the fact that flynn was compromised, explained why. We had general flynn engaging in discussions with the Russian Ambassador that were essentially neutering the american sanctions, and that is a very curious thing to be doing, particularly when the russians had been acting to benefit President Trump. And then he is covering it up. Hes lying about it. So the agents understandably needed to understand what the relationship was here between general flynn and the russians. And it was a very deliberate, planned set of conversations with the Russian Ambassador to essentially tell them, dont worry about it. Things are going to change once were in place. And that wasnt the only troubling conduct by flynn by the way. Flynn was advising the Trump Campaign during the election at the same time that he was being paid over half a Million Dollars by the turkish government to advance turkeys interests. Flynn even participated in talks to kidnap a turkish cleric living in the United States and deliver him to turkey. The Mueller Report also revealed that flynn was engaged in a secret effort with a republican operative during the campaign to try and obtain Hillary Clintons emails from russians on the dark web. And yet despite all of this, flynns move to withdraw his guilty plea this year and hire fever swamp lawyer sidney powell, the same lawyer by the way who was recently dumped by the president s legal team for engaging in conspiracy theories about this election that were so outlandish, they couldnt even stand her. That resulted in praise from the president and the Justice Department making the unprecedented decision to drop its own case against the former National Security adviser. The judge in flynns case was not ready to go along with that, but no matter. Today came the pardon we all knew was coming. Flynn now becomes the second trump associate convicted as part of the russia investigation granted clemency by this president. Trump previously commuted the sentence of his longtime adviser roger stone, who we now know told the president in advance about wikileaks dumps of stolen clinton emails. Now, flynn may be the latest felon to receive a pardon, but it appears he will not be the last. Already tonight were seeing reports that trump intends to pardon several other criminal elements in his orbit, and there are many. The New York Times reports tonight that flynns pardon may set off a wave of pardons in his remaining weeks in office. Now, that is going to be music to the ears of former Campaign ManagerPaul Manafort, former white house adviser steve bannon, former top fundraiser elliott broidy, and trump personal lawyer rudy giuliani, all of whom have either been convicted, indicted, or are currently under criminal investigation. Tonight the president also retweeted his congressional ally matt gaetz, who says the president should pardon everyone, including himself. Theres a lot to unpack here. Joining us now is andrew weissmann, a former Senior Member of special counsel muellers team, former fbi general counsel. Andrew weissman is the author of where law ends inside the mueller investigation. Thank you for joining us tonight. There is a distinction between this pardon and every other pardon i mentioned by previous president s, and that is this, like the commutation of roger stones sentence, is about stuff that was related to donald trump himself and or his election. Absolutely, and this is another example of this president really letting us see that our system of checks and balances really dont take into account how to deal with a president who is shameless and brazen and has no respect for the rule of law. And now were seeing it play out with respect to the pardon power, this time with respect to Michael Flynn. But as you said, were likely to see this happen again. And one thing i would add to your excellent litany of what Michael Flynn did is after committing a slew of crimes, many of which he committed as the National Security adviser to the president of the United States. In other words, he committed a felony as the National Secure adviser. He then appeared in court, admitted what he did, and then later told the judge that he lied to the court when he said he was guilty. In other words, he admitted that he committed yet another felony, which was lying to the court. So this is not a normal situation where someone says, you know, thats a really good candidate for an exercise of the pardon power. This is somebody who because of the conflicts, you would think the president really shouldnt be weighing in at all on this type of crime because he obviously has a vested interest in it in the same way he had a vested interest in the commutation of roger stones sentence, where the judge actually said that that crime was committed on behalf of the president of the United States. So lets just take that a little further because when we compare this to other commutations or pardons, its not just that the president might have had an interest, but there had been speculation for the last four years that , and be all incorrect, but there was some element of the president signaling messages to these people who had information on him that you play the game this way, ill take care of you later. This idea of quid pro quo. You would know more about this than i would, but the fact is the previous pardons that we talked about earlier didnt have that element. It wasnt there couldnt the average person couldnt look at it and say, well, maybe trumps getting something out of this. Sure. Well, one of the things that you can tell from the Mueller Report i detail in my book is that the president used the dangling of pardons to thwart cooperation with the special counsel investigation. In other words, thats one aspect of his obstructive conduct so that if you are a roger stone or a Paul Manafort, you can say, you know, maybe its better to not cooperate with the government because you know what . I dont think im going to be going to jail. And in roger stones case, you know, that actually worked out. He never served a day of the sentence that a federal judge handed out to him because the president acted before he actually had to surrender in court. So that use of the pardon power is very different than what weve seen. Now, thats not in any way to say that the use of the pardon power by george bush one or bill clinton was in every instance correct. I think there are also ways in which the pardon power has been abused. But here when its part and parcel of the crimes and the conduct that the president has engaged in himself, it really is of a different nature. And i do think it is a factor that the new attorney general is going to have to consider when they consider what should happen to donald trump when he is a former president because a key issue for the new attorney general is going to be, what do you do with his obstructive conduct . Is it really okay to sweep it under the rug, or is it appropriate for him to be held to account for that . You make a good point. Mark rich and bill clinton were well connected, and george h. W. Bush was involved in irancontra, so they both issued pardons to people who were involved with them. Andrew, it was good to see you. I was kind of excited to see your english cocker spaniel. I dont see any sign of him around or her. Hes had his day in the limelight. Thats enough. Thank you for joining us, my friend. Good to see you as always. Andrew weissmann is a former Senior Member of special counsel muellers team. I want to turn now to congressman adam schiff to sort of pick up where we left off. Congressman, good to see you again. Thank you for being with us. What andrew was talking about is interesting and troubling first of all. How does what happened today affect two things . Number one is matt gaetzs comment the president should pardon all sorts of people, which he probably will do, including himself. And how does this affect what happens on january 20th of 2020, because the president as we know faces a lot of exposure, both civilly and criminally. I would say this. It doesnt literally impact whether the president can pardon himself or whether that will be enforceable in court. In fact, im quite confident thats unconstitutional. One of the premises behind our constitution is that no one is adjudge of their own case. We are bound by the rule of law. We are a nation of laws, not individuals. If a president could commit any crime he wanted and simply pardon himself, it would be selfdefeating. So i dont think that would be upheld, but it may be tested. If the Southern District of new york were to decide, for example, that having asked a judge to sentence Michael Cohen to jail for a campaign fraud scheme in which individual number one coordinated and directed the scheme and individual number one is donald trump, and they were to bring charges against him when he leaves the white house, the Trump Defense team would undoubtedly raise a pardon if he had given himself one in his defense. But i dont think the court would uphold that, and nothing that happened today will affect the constitutional analysis. Whether it will affect the analysis of a future attorney general or Justice Department, i think they will have to look on a casebycase basis, the egregiousness of the president s conduct with the president s priority that the country hail the great divide. And i dont envy the difficulty of that decision. Let me ask you about the other area of the expertise other than the law and that is intelligence. Often these other pardons have been instances in which one could argue that the prosecution was unfair or one could argue that the person has paid their price, or one could argue that the pardon is of no consequence. None of those apply here from the perspective of intelligence. Michael flynn is a man who understood intelligence. He worked in intelligence in his military career, and he was in charge of and responsible for matters of intelligence, which arguably were compromised during his short tenure in service of President Trump. Well, unquestionably. And, ali, as you pointed out, when Michael Flynn lied to the Vice President , the Vice President then went on National Television and misled the american people. The russians knew Michael Flynn had lied because he had talked directly with their ambassador. That made him vulnerable to compromise. He could be blackmailed. This was indeed the concern that sally yates raised in bringing this to the attention of the administration that he was now subject to compromise. By giving him a pardon now, imagine the signal that sends to our russian adversary, that essentially, you know, the president can make russias problems go away by dismissing a case against someone who had lied on their behalf, who had concealed these illicit contacts. It just makes a mockery out of our system, and i think demonstrates that it can be exploited