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Update: President Trump has pardoned I. Lewis Libby Jr., former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. He is better known as "Scooter Libby":
"I don't know Mr. Libby," Trump said in a statement, "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."
President Trump plans to pardon I. Lewis Libby Jr., who as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted of perjury in connection with the leak of a C.I.A. officer's identity, a person familiar with the decision said on Thursday.
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."
Mr. Libby, who goes by Scooter, was convicted of four felonies in 2007 for perjury before a grand jury, lying to F.B.I. investigators and obstruction of justice during an investigation into the disclosure of the work of Valerie Plame Wilson, a C.I.A. officer. President George W. Bush commuted Mr. Libby's 30-month prison sentence but refused to grant him a full pardon despite the strenuous requests of Mr. Cheney, a decision that soured the relationship between the two men.
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.
Critics of Mr. Trump quickly interpreted the prospective pardon as a signal by the president that he would protect those who refuse to turn on their bosses, as Mr. Libby was presumed not to have betrayed Mr. Cheney. Mr. Trump has not ruled out pardons in the Russia investigation.
Is this President Trump's "Chelsea Manning moment"?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Friday April 13 2018, @10:23PM (4 children)
George W. Bush will carry the same of his cowardice in not pardoning Libby to his grave. Something I'm sure Trump hopes sticks in the craw of the whole Bush clan by his doing what W lacked the integrity to do himself for a faithful servant. And yeah I'm sure it is also intended as a message to modern witch hunt victims like Flynn that patience and steadfast loyalty in the face of insanity will be rewarded.
Oh, and for the record, that whole "Plamegate" investigation was a farce, the leaker confessed to the special prosecutor on the first day, yet the "investigation" went on how long? Pop quiz, who actually leaked and was it even a crime? Hint: The leaker was not charged.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @11:27PM (2 children)
Logic fail. Just because a "leaker" was never charged does not mean no crime was committed. Yes, in a perfect world all lawbreakers would be charged but, in case you hadn't noticed, we don't live in a perfect world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @12:32AM
I suppose that, in this perfect world, unjust laws would not exist? Because if not, it would just be hell.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday April 14 2018, @07:25PM
No, that is a reading comprehension fail for you. A "hint" is only intended to guide the searcher to the truth. But in this case it is pretty damning since the "Special Counsel" was appointed specifically to investigate the leaking of a covert operator's name to the media. If that act wasn't in fact a crime[1] it kinda shatters the whole illusion. Libby was railroaded on a process crime in the investigation of a non-crime in what was already a closed case? After the leaker had confessed months ago and had been cleared of all wrongdoing on the grounds that what he did wasn't a crime? Really? If you read that and aren't convinced we are on the wrong effing side of the looking glass then I'm afraid you are beyond help. Seriously, read this paragraph again, it isn't opinion, none of the facts are still in dispute.
[1] It was not a crime because Mrs. Plame had not been covert for years, everyone in DC knew about her, her past and most important the present overt political activity of both her and her husband.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 14 2018, @02:28AM
You are a perfect example of tribe-above-all-else politics, and a microcosm of the disease that's shot the GOP through like metastatic cancer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...