Can Cheney Go to Jail?: Spiro Agnew

Martin Longman

19 years ago

Can Cheney be indicted and sent to jail? Yes. The question was decided back in the 1970’s, when it became clear that Vice-President Spiro Agnew was a tax-cheat and an extortionist/bribe-taker.

…on April 10, 1973, the vice president called Haldeman to his office to report a problem…

The U.S. attorney in Maryland, investigating illegal campaign contributions and kickbacks, had questioned Jerome Wolff, Agnew’s former aide. Wolff had kept verbatim accounts of meetings during which Agnew discussed raising funds from those who had received state contracts. Agnew swore that “it wasn’t shakedown stuff, it was merely going back to get support from those who had benefitted from the Administration.”

It was a bad time for the Nixon administration, as they were already trying to fend off the Watergate investigation.

:::flip:::

Nixon had quipped that Agnew was his insurance against impeachment, arguing that no one wanted to remove him if it meant elevating Agnew to the presidency. The joke took on reality when Agnew asked House Speaker Carl Albert to request that the House conduct a full inquiry into the charges against him. Agnew reasoned that a vice president could be impeached but not indicted. That line of reasoning, however, also jeopardized the president. For over a century since the failed impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, it had been commonly accepted reasoning that impeachment was an impractical and inappropriate congressional tool against the presidency. Agnew’s impeachment would set a precedent that could be turned against Nixon.

Agnew’s attempt to save his skin, by asserting a Vice-President cannot be indicted, failed:

A brief from the solicitor general argued that, while the president was immune from indictment, the vice president was not, since his conviction would not disrupt the workings of the executive branch. Agnew, a proud man filled with moral indignation, reacted to these arguments by digging in his heels and taking a stance that journalists described as “aggressively defensive.” He refused the initial suggestions from the White House that he resign voluntarily, after which Agnew believed that high-level officials “launched a campaign to drive me out by leaking anti-Agnew stories to the media.”

Then things got really ugly:

By September, it was a more desperate, less confident-looking man who informed Nixon that he would consider resignation if granted immunity from prosecution. Nixon noted that “in a sad and gentle voice he asked for my assurance that I would not turn my back on him if he were out of office.” Believing that for Agnew to resign would be the most honorable course of action, Nixon felt confident that, when the vice president left for California shortly after their meeting, he was going away to think matters over and to prepare his family for his resignation. But in Los Angeles, fired up by an enthusiastic gathering of the National Federation of Republican Women, Agnew defiantly shouted, “I will not resign if indicted!” As Agnew later explained, he had spent the previous evening at the home of the singer Frank Sinatra, who had urged him to fight back.

Nixon’s new chief of staff and “crisis manager,” General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., was haunted by the specter of a double impeachment of the president and vice president, which could turn the presidency over to congressional Democrats. General Haig therefore took the initiative in forcing Agnew out of office. He instructed Agnew’s staff that the president wanted no more speeches like the one in Los Angeles. He further advised that the Justice Department would prosecute Agnew on the charge of failing to record on his income tax returns the cash contributions he had received. Haig assured Agnew’s staff that, if the vice president resigned and pleaded guilty on the tax charge, the government would settle the other charges against him and he would serve no jail sentence. But if Agnew continued to fight, “it can and will get nasty and dirty.” From this report, Agnew concluded that the president had abandoned him. The vice president even feared for his life, reading into Haig’s message: “go quietly—or else.” General Haig similarly found Agnew menacing enough to alert Mrs. Haig that should he disappear she “might want to look inside any recently poured concrete bridge pilings in Maryland.”

In the end, no one got whacked. Spiro resigned, and the President appointed Gerald Ford to replace him:

Meanwhile, Agnew’s attorneys had entered into plea bargaining with the federal prosecutors. In return for pleading nolo contendere, or no contest, to the tax charge and paying $160,000 in back taxes (with the help of a loan from Frank Sinatra), he would receive a suspended sentence and a $10,000 fine. On October 10, 1973, while Spiro T. Agnew appeared in federal court in Baltimore, his letter of resignation was delivered to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Agnew was only the second vice president to resign the office (John C. Calhoun had been the first). Prior to resigning, Agnew paid a last visit to President Nixon, who assured him that what he was doing was best for his family and his country. When he later recalled the president’s gaunt appearance, Agnew wrote: “It was hard to believe he was not genuinely sorry about the course of events. Within two days, this consummate actor would be celebrating his appointment of a new Vice-President with never a thought of me.”

In 2000, the Clinton Justice Department reaffirmed that a sitting cannot President cannot be indicted but a Vice-President can.

Here are some colorful quotes from Spiro Agnew’s time as Vice-President.

“If you tell me hippies and yippies are going to be able to do the job of helping America, I’ll tell you this: They can’t run a bus; they can’t serve in a government office; they can’t run a lathe in a factory. All they can do is lay down in the park and sleep or kick policemen.” — September 2, 1968.

“A Nixon-Agnew administration will abolish the credibility gap and reestablish the truth — the whole truth — as its policy.” — September 21, 1973.

“I’ve been into many [ghettos] and, to some extent, I’d have to say this: If you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen them all.” — October 18, 1973.

“We can afford to separate [protesters] from our society with no more regret than we should feel over discarding rotten apples from a barrel.” — October 30, 1973.

“My 14-year-old daughter, Kim, wanted to wear a black armband to school to demonstrate against the War. I told her I had no objections if she really understood the facts. So I took a lot of time to tell her [about] the situation. She said, ‘I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t agree.’ So I said, ‘Kim, I have given you the arguments for not just getting out, and you just haven’t given me a logical argument against it. So there will be no black armband and no participation in a demonstration.'” — October 6, 1973.

“I find it hard to believe that the way to run the world has been revealed to a minority of pushy youngsters and middle-aged malcontents.” — October 9, 1973.

“The student now goes to college to proclaim rather than to learn. A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete
corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” — October 18, 1973.

“For millions of Americans, the network reporter who covers a continuing issue, like ABM or civil rights, becomes in effect the presiding judge in a national trial by jury… I am asking whether a form of censorship exists when the news that 40 million Americans receive each night [with its] instant analysis and querulous criticism is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and filtered through a handful of commentators who admit their own set of biases.” — November 3, 1973.

“To penetrate the cacophony of seditious drivel emanating from the best-publicized clowns in our society and their fans in the Fourth Estate… we need a cry of alarm, not a whisper.” — February, 1970.

(In reaction to protests over the invasion of Cambodia on the day before the Kent State massacre): “I think if the War were over, they
would find something else to use as an excuse for throwing firebombs into the Bank of America.” — May 3, 1970.

“Ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy, and a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law ‘n’ order.” — September 10, 1973.

(On his role as political spokesman and hatchet man for Nixon): “Clearly, President Nixon wants me to do this, just as he did it for President Eisenhower. It’s the most virile role I have.” — January, 1972.

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