Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.
Summary: President Donald Trump pardoned Scooter Libby on Friday.
On Friday President Donald Trump pardoned I. Lewis Libby, Jr., also known as Scooter Libby. Libby was chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and was convicted of perjury during a case involving the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.
“Mr. Libby’s case has long been a cause for conservatives who maintained that he was a victim of a special prosecutor run amok, an argument that may have resonated with the president. Mr. Trump has repeatedly complained that the special counsel investigation into possible cooperation between his campaign and Russia in 2016 has gone too far and amounts to an unfair “witch hunt,”” The New York Times said.
During President George W. Bush’s administration, Libby was convicted in 2007 of four felonies for lying to a grand jury during an FBI investigation about the work of CIA officer, Valerie Plame Wilson.
Libby was given a 30-month prison sentence but refused a full pardon from President Bush, and the New York Times said that refusal soured their relationship. A source in the White House said on Thursday that Trump was considering a pardon.
“A pardon of Mr. Libby would paradoxically put Mr. Trump in the position of absolving one of the chief architects of the Iraq war, which Mr. Trump has denounced as a catastrophic miscalculation. It would also mean he was forgiving a former official who was convicted in a case involving leaks despite Mr. Trump’s repeated inveighing against those who disclose information to reporters,” the New York Times stated.
Trump released a statement through the White House that he did not personally know Libby but that the man had been treated unfairly. Like Trump, Libby had also been investigated by James Comey, the former FBI director that Trump had fired and is now releasing a tell-all about Trump’s administration.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” Trump said. “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.”
After the pardon, Libby expressed his gratitude to Trump, according to CNN.
“For over a dozen years we have suffered under the weight of a terrible injustice,” Libby said. “To his great credit, President Trump recognized this wrong and would not let it persist.”
Libby was not accused of leaking the CIA operative’s identity, but he was convicted of lying to the grand jury, a move that some say he did to protect Cheney.
On Friday, Cheney called Libby “one of the most capable, principled, and honorable men I have ever known. He is innocent, and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction. I am grateful today that President Trump righted this wrong by issuing a full pardon to Scooter, and I am thrilled for Scooter and his family.”