Ford did it because he was a typical RINO suck-up, covering the tracks of the Stupid Party.(Ford) did it because he thought it would be best for the country.
Ford did it because it was best for the country. Congress would have behaved as a Special Prosecutor, and Nixon would have had all the justice Scooter Libby got. Of course, Ford then should have withdrawn from consideration for the Republican nomination, leaving the field open to Ronald Reagan. But that would have been anathema to Ford; even in 1980 the GOPe ran Anderson as a third party candidate . . .And of course had Ford done so, Reagan possibly could have been defeated by Carter in ’76 - after all, in 1976 America didn’t know what a lashup the Carter Administration would prove to be. Nor could Reagan have been in office in the mid-late ‘80s, when he was needed.
Tampering with the historic timeline is fraught with difficulties.