Washington – President Bush on Tuesday refused to rule out an eventual pardon for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, leaving open the chance he may wipe away the former White House aide’s criminal record after already erasing his prison sentence.
“I rule nothing in or nothing out,” Bush said when asked about whether he might pardon Libby before leaving office in 2009.
The president’s stance, on one level, was merely practical. When he commuted Libby’s 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, a court ruling had made jail time imminent. Bush has plenty of time to consider a pardon, depending on how Libby’s appeals go.
Bush’s words had political significance, too. By keeping his options open, he offered hope to the conservative members of his party who believe he should go further in pardoning Libby. He also kept alive a controversy that could follow him to the last day of his presidency.
Libby, who once wielded enormous influence as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity. The long-running case meant the end of Libby’s government career and dovetailed with the broader troubles of Bush’s second term in office.
Bush abruptly commuted Libby’s prison sentence – an unusual step, given that it had not yet begun – five hours after a federal appeals court panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. Bush left intact the sentence of two years’ probation and a $250,000 fine, citing a need for some accountability.
In his first public comments on the matter Tuesday, Bush defended his rationale.
“I felt like the jury verdict ought to stand, and I felt like some of the punishments that the judge determined were adequate should stand,” Bush said after visiting wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “But I felt like the 30- month sentencing was severe.”
“I made a judgment, a considered judgment,” the president added. “I stand by it.”
Judge Reggie B. Walton, who sentenced Libby, was one of Bush’s first picks for a seat on the federal bench: a tough-on-crime judge with a reputation for handing down stiff sentences. Walton declined Tuesday to discuss the case or his views on sentencing.
“To now say anything about sentencing on the heels of yesterday’s events will inevitably be construed as comments on the president’s commutation decision, which would be inappropriate,” the judge said in an e-mail.
But attorneys noted some irony in Bush’s decision to override Walton.
“The party who appointed him is now unhappy with what he appointed him to do,” said Scott Fredericksen, a defense lawyer who served as a prosecutor under every president since Ronald Reagan.
Bush took heat for his decision from the left and the right.
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page said Bush’s unwillingness to pardon Libby was “another profile in non-courage.” On the other side, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the prospect of eventual pardon for Libby: “The motto of this administration seems to be: When you’re in a hole up to your neck, keep digging.”
Unlike the commutation, a pardon would wipe away Libby’s felony conviction.
White House officials cautioned against reading too much into Bush’s comment that he wouldn’t rule out a pardon.
Spokesman Tony Snow – directly addressing those arguing for a pardon – said the jury system must be respected.
Case in legal limbo
Washington – President Bush forced the CIA leak case into uncharted legal territory when he commuted the prison sentence of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a federal judge said Tuesday.
Bush eliminated Libby’s 2 1/2-year prison term and left in place his two years of supervised release. But supervised release – a form of probation – is available only to people who have served prison time. Without prison, it’s unclear what happens next.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton posed the question to Libby’s attorneys and to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: Does this mean Libby won’t be required to serve supervised release? Should he just have to report to probation officials as if he spent time in prison? The law, Walton said in court documents, “does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration.” For now, it appears Libby is in legal limbo. Walton gave both sides until Monday to respond.
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
