Libby’s pardon sends a ‘message’
Former Cheney aide convicted of obstruction
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Friday to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, suggesting the former top aide to vicepresident Dick Cheney had been “treated unfairly” by a special counsel at a moment when the president himself faces an escalating special counsel investigation.
Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted in 2007 of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice following the 2003 leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. President George W. Bush later commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence but didn’t issue a pardon despite intense pressure from Cheney.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” Trump said in a statement issued by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
Trump pardoned Libby in a case that dealt with leaks to the press despite the fact that he has raged against press leaks and excoriated “leakers” throughout his presidency. No one was ever charged for the leak in Plame’s case.
The White House said a witness against Libby later changed her version of events and noted that he had a decade of public service and an “unblemished” record since. He had already been reinstated to the bar by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
Libby’s case has been criticized by conservatives, who argue he was the victim of a politically motivated prosecution by a special counsel.
The criticism echoes critiques of Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, possible co-ordination with Trump associates and potential obstruction of justice by the president. Trump has called that probe a “witch hunt.”
Critics questioned the timing of the pardon. Earlier in the day, amid reports that a pardon was planned, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the timing was “suspect.”
“It hasn’t been done through the normal channels. He hasn’t gone through the pardon office. And there’s no particular reason to pardon Scooter Libby,” Nadler said. “So one certainly suspects there’s a message.”