Mark Felt - Pardon

Pardon

In a phone call on January 30, 1981, Edwin Meese encouraged President Ronald Reagan to issue a pardon, and, after further encouragement from Felt's former colleagues, President Reagan pardoned Felt. The pardon was signed on March 26, but was not announced to the public until April 15, 1981. (The delay was partly because Reagan was shot on March 30.) In the pardon, Reagan wrote:

During their long careers, Mark Felt and Edward Miller served the Federal Bureau of Investigation and our nation with great distinction. To punish them further — after 3 years of criminal prosecution proceedings — would not serve the ends of justice.

Their convictions in the U.S. District Court, on appeal at the time I signed the pardons, grew out of their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country. The record demonstrates that they acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government.

Nixon sent Felt and Miller bottles of champagne with the note "Justice ultimately prevails." The New York Times disapproved, saying that America "deserved better than a gratuitous revision of the record by the President." Felt and Miller said they would seek repayment of their legal fees from the government.

The Chief Prosecutor at the trial, John W. Nields Jr., said "I would warrant that whoever is responsible for the pardons did not read the record of the trial and did not know the facts of the case." Nields also complained that the White House did not consult with the prosecutors in the case, which was usual practice when a pardon was under consideration.

Felt reacted by saying, "I feel very excited and just so pleased that I can hardly contain myself. I am most grateful to the President. I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to thank him. It's just like having a heavy burden lifted off your back. This case has been dragging on for five years." Miller told a press conference the day of the announcement "I certainly owe the Gipper one." Their Attorney, Thomas Kennelly, said "We thank God and we thank President Reagan that these two good men have been vindicated at last." Carter Attorney General Griffin Bell said he did not object to the pardons, as the initial convictions showed that behavior such as Felt and Miller's was no longer tolerated.

Despite their pardons, Felt and Miller won permission from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to appeal the conviction so as to remove it from their record and to prevent it being used in civil suits by the victims of the break-ins they ordered. Ultimately, Felt's law license was returned by the court in 1982, which cited Reagan's pardon. In June 1982, Felt and Miller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's security and terrorism subcommittee that the restrictions placed on the FBI by Attorney General Edward H. Levi were threatening the country's safety.