First off, would this even be legal? If it is legal, and Nixon is cleared of all charges, how would America, the Democrats, the Republicans, the world react? Would there might be some changes to the Constitution later?
And self-pardoning would probably make his impeachment that much more certain.He can pardon himself of criminal charges (i.e. - he can't be put in jail), but he can't pardon himself to prevent impeachment.
Once he had worked out that he had to resign (that is that impeachment, conviction and removal from office were certain if he stayed on) he could I think legally have pardoned himself.
It might actually have helped Ford a lot.
Constitutional crisis. I suppose it goes straight to the Supreme Court, who will immediately rule on whether or not the sitting President can pardon himself. If the Court rules that Nixon can, I imagine outrage is going to spread among the public, enough for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning the President from pardoning himself in the future.
Yeah, I was gonna say that too. Nixon truly believed that if the President did it, it wasn't illegal, and that he had not done anything wrong and that by pardoning himself, he would be admitting guilt, and he didn't think he was guilty. This is why, if I recall, he was at least a bit pissed when Ford pardoned him. Then again, Ford could be credited with preventing Nixon for self destructing any further with that.Nixon's attorneys advised him that self-pardon was an option, but he refused, insisting to the bitter end that he had not done anything wrong. Fortunately for him, his staff got Ford to pardon him instead.
The problem here is a big and common one with many alternate histories; to change an event, you would have to change a person's personality, but by doing that, you negate all history involving that person since their actions and life were based on their personality.