The problem is, there's no way this would stay quiet if he was actually dead. There were 7 people directly involved and about 60 ultimately charged for Watergate, and that leaked like a sieve. Granted they were caught, but if he was an actual corpse there's no way someone wouldn't leak something. Now incapacitated, sure.

But if the dead man was on ice for a while here you can bet people are absolutely going to look into exactly how long he has been dead for. This has been way too high profile for them to try to just hand wave it through.

I really think he is just mentally useless. You saw the guy freezing and falling for months. I think whatever happened, he's not dead, they're just pretending "oh yeah he will be right back, just a minute." Until the timeline passes, then it'll be "oops actually ya know what he's just gonna go ahead and resign" because he isn't publicly functional anymore. He hasn't been for years, but this last illness/injury just pushed him over the line. They were probably just trying to get him to the next election cycle, and this injury pushed up the timeline so they had to bluff to the "finish line".

Still absolute horseshit either way. I don't think he's been "valid" for years.

Just get the facility staff to fudge the paperwork. No need for elaborate nonsense. It isn't like they are just going to allow any random person to come and check the corpse's liver temp.

All they have to do is announce it, get staff to fudge the paperwork to look legit, then they embalm the body for the funeral or cremation and the evidence is gone.

There is also the possibility he is clinically dead (no brain activity but still has biological activity) but not physically dead (no biological activity whatsoever) and they are just going to have his wife conveniently decide to pull the plug. Then there is no need to fudge the numbers.