Trump pardons Libby, says he was ‘treated unfairly’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a pardon Friday to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, suggesting the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney had been “treated unfairly” by a special counsel. The pardon comes at a moment when the president faces an escalating special counsel investigation of his own.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted the pardon was not intended to send a message to the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, saying, “One thing has nothing to do with the other.” But critics noted the timing, coming as Trump fumes over Robert Mueller’s probe, which he has dubbed a “witch hunt.”
Trump said in a statement that he didn’t know Libby, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.”
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, though no one was ever charged for the leak. President George W. Bush later commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence but didn’t issue a pardon despite intense pressure from Cheney.
In a statement, Libby thanked Trump, saying his family has “suffered under the weight of a terrible injustice.” He said Trump “recognized this wrong and would not let it persist. For this honorable act, we shall forever be grateful.”
Pardons are not a finding of innocence, but they do restore the civil rights that are normally lost because of a criminal conviction. The White House said that a witness against Libby later changed her version of events and that Libby had a decade of public service and an “unblemished” record since. He had been disbarred but was reinstated by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 2016.
Conservatives have rallied around Libby’s case, arguing he was the victim of an overly zealous and politically motivated prosecution by a special counsel. In a twist, the special counsel in Libby’s case, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed by James Comey, deputy attorney general at the time. Comey later became head of the FBI but was fired by Trump in 2017 and has since written a book highly critical of the president.
Fitzgerald denied that prosecution was unjust.
“While the President has the constitutional power to pardon, the decision to do so in this case purports to be premised on the notion that Libby was an innocent man convicted on the basis of inaccurate testimony caused by the prosecution,” he said Friday. “This is false.”
Libby’s attorneys, Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, issued a statement thanking Trump for “addressing a gross injustice” they said was inflicted by Fitzgerald and Comey. Libby’s