Key Takeaways:
- Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa was five years into a 13-year prison sentence when President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in December 1971.
- The terms of his commutation barred Hoffa from managing a labor organization.
- When Hoffa disappeared four years later, he was still fighting that condition of his commutation, which he argued was a violation of his First Amendment rights.
In March 1967, firebrand labor organizer James “Jimmy” Hoffa was facing a 13-year prison sentence, a combination of eight years for attempting to bribe a grand juror and five years for wire and mail fraud.
The path to his conviction was wildly unpredictable. It involved appeals to the Supreme Court, a Robert F. Kennedy–led crusade that one author called a “Get Hoffa squad,” and even a pellet gun–based assassination attempt from a mentally ill man.
But the path ahead was clear and unpromising. As president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), 10 years into a contentious but undeniably influential reign, Hoffa now faced prison time until 1980. Nobody in his Rolodex of powerful men in high and (allegedly) low places could keep him out of prison—at least, as far as he knew.
Yet after just five years behind bars, in 1971, Hoffa would be a free man, thanks to an incredibly unlikely ally: President Richard Nixon.
But did Nixon’s mercy ultimately cost Hoffa more than prison would have? And did his fight against the terms of his release end up costing him his life?
The Long History—and Controversy—Behind Presidential Pardons
The presidential pardon has its roots in some of the earliest political writings of the United States of America. Article No. 74 of The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788, proposed the idea that the president be authorized to grant “reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT,” and that “humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed.”
Practically every modern president has granted pardons that inspire outrage extending beyond partisan borders. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft dodgers, for example, while Ronald Reagan pardoned FBI officials who authorized break-ins of anti-Vietnam protestors’ homes.
Bill Clinton begins the presidential portion of his autobiography My Life lamenting his predecessor George H.W. Bush’s dubious pardon of the Iran-Contra conspirators, only to conclude his reflections on his own presidential legacy by expressing regret over pardoning financier Marc Rich.
Recent moves, like Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons and Donald Trump’s idea of a possible
“self-pardon,” have reignited concerns about just how far presidential pardoning power can go. But one case that put those limits to the test came decades earlier, when, in a strange twist, Jimmy Hoffa called the conditions of his own pardon into question.
Why Jimmy Hoffa’s Release Wasn’t a True Pardon
It’s crucial to note that while Nixon’s actions allowed Hoffa to leave prison just five years into his 13-year sentence, in December 1971, Nixon didn’t actually pardon Hoffa. He merely commuted his sentence to time served.
As was determined in Ex parte Garland in 1866, a presidential pardon “reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender.” When the president issues a full pardon, “it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that, in the eye of the law, the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence.”
By opting for a commutation instead of a full pardon, Nixon let Hoffa go free, but his conviction still stood. In the eyes of the law, Hoffa had done the crime; he just didn’t have to serve the full time.
Nixon, however, did attach a condition to Hoffa’s commutation: While Hoffa could walk free, he wasn’t permitted to “engage in the direct or indirect management of any labor organization” until March 6, 1980.
In June 1971, just months before Hoffa’s commutation, Hoffa resigned from his position as Teamsters president, and the one-time Hoffa loyalist-turned-acting president Frank Fitzsimmons was quickly elected as the new Teamsters president.
That July, Fitzsimmons received a letter from Nixon that said the IBT and the Nixon administration “should work together on economic problems.” After Hoffa’s commutation, the IBT broke with more than a decade of endorsing only Democrats in order to endorse Nixon in his 1972 reelection bid against the populist Democratic candidate, George McGovern.
The timeline of events might look suspicious to some. But it’s no conspiracy theory: Historians now confirm Nixon’s team worked with Fitzsimmons to push for Hoffa’s conditional release—partly to keep the Teamsters union stable, but partly to stop Hoffa from regaining power.
Did Richard Nixon’s Deal With the Teamsters Keep Jimmy Hoffa From Power?
One of the infamous “Nixon tapes,” a series of recorded phone calls taped during Nixon’s time in the White House, is a recording labeled “Conversation 016-053.” Recorded on December 8, 1971, at 3:30 p.m., the nine-minute conversation occurred between Nixon and Office of Public Liaison Director Charles W. Colson. But the call concerned a third party: Fitzsimmons.
The call begins with Nixon speaking vaguely, evoking the now-infamous names of “Mitchell” (attorney general John H. Mitchell) and “Haldeman” (Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman) wanting to get a decision on “the thing.” Colson soon makes the situation clear.
“Fitzsimmons is now going to press us very hard for a decision,” Colson says to Nixon. He continues:
“Let me give you the trade-offs this way: First of all, Fitz wants to get Hoffa out because it’s the only way that he can keep control of the pro-Hoffa forces within the Teamsters. He is shot down, eventually, if Hoffa doesn’t get out. If Hoffa gets out with no strings attached, he, Fitzsimmons, will undoubtedly at some point be in a power struggle and then lose.”
“So he wants him out,” Colson concludes, “... but he wants him out with strings.”
At the time of the commutation, Fitzsimmons denied any such quid-pro-quo arrangement.
But the fresh-out-of-prison Hoffa wasn’t ready to go free without a fight. He accused the Nixon administration of violating his First Amendment rights by imposing the “no union activity” condition on his commutation, and he took them to court to try and get the condition overturned. Hoffa spent the next few years angling to return to power—so long as the court lifted the ban that prevented it.
How Jimmy Hoffa Tried to Overturn the Condition That Silenced Him
While Hoffa no longer held the immense sway he once did, he still had plenty of fiercely loyal supporters ready to fight for him. How far were they willing to go? According to a 1975 New York Times report, many of the people who publicly opposed Hoffa started turning up with torched property and bombed-out cars.
In July 1974, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided Hoffa’s court case, Hoffa v. Saxbe. Judge John H. Pratt ruled that Nixon had “unfettered executive discretion” when it came to granting clemency, and the conditions placed upon Hoffa were reasonable because Hoffa committed his crimes as a Teamsters official.
Hoffa’s commutation gave him a chance to quietly step away from public life. But by publicly rejecting the conditions of that deal, he made one thing clear: No matter what Fitzsimmons, the Mafia, or even Nixon did to keep him out of the spotlight, he wouldn’t go quietly.
And so, perhaps, he needed to be silenced.
The Day Jimmy Hoffa Vanished Without a Trace
On July 30, 1975, one year after the court declared that Nixon could indeed keep Hoffa away from union activity, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared entirely. No more attempts at union leadership, no more court battles against a president. His final known act was a payphone conversation near the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield, Michigan, where he told his wife he’d cook some steaks when he got home.
Then, he was gone.
From that day on, nobody knew (or would admit they knew) where Hoffa was. There was, of course, one place they knew he wasn’t: the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. That’s where Hoffa had expected to be in the summer of 1975, back when he was first sentenced to 13 years in prison, before he resigned from the Teamsters presidency, and before Nixon’s intervention.
By the time Hoffa disappeared, Nixon had already resigned the presidency, and his successor, Gerald Ford, had issued a controversial pardon absolving him of any crimes committed while in office.
Ford’s pardon, however, was full and unconditional.
Michale Natale is a News Editor for the Hearst Enthusiast Group. As a writer and researcher, he has produced written and audio-visual content for more than fifteen years, spanning historical periods from the dawn of early man to the Golden Age of Hollywood. His stories for the Enthusiast Group have involved coordinating with organizations like the National Parks Service and the Secret Service, and travelling to notable historical sites and archaeological digs, from excavations of America’ earliest colonies to the former homes of Edgar Allan Poe.
