Richard Nixon convicted on charges of bribery, tax evasion and money laundering during his tenure as governor of Maryland. Believing his first choice, John Connally, would not be confirmed by Congress, Nixon chose Gerald Ford, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to replace Agnew. One researcher suggests Nixon effectively disengaged from his own administration after Ford was sworn in as Vice President on December 6, 1973. On November 17, 1973, during a televised question-and-answer session with the press, Nixon said, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything
Spiro Agnew series of televised interviews with British TV host David Frost, Nixon claimed that he had had no direct role in the processes that had led to Agnew's resignation and implied that his vice president had been hounded by the liberal media: "He made mistakes ... but I do not think for one minute that Spiro Agnew consciously felt that he was violating the law". In 1980, Agnew published a memoir, "Go Quietly ... or Else". In it, he protested his total innocence of the charges that had brought his resignation, and claimed that he had been coerced by the White