Potential Libby Pardon is Talk of Town
A day after former top vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for his role in obstructing a federal investigation into how a CIA agent’s identity was leaked, one topic is being discussed all over Washington, D.C..
That is a potential pardon for Libby by President George W. Bush, reports Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin in a lengthy analysis of the situation.
“The thinking appears to be that Bush will grant one before Libby has to go to prison, which could be as soon as the end of July,” he writes, rounding up a detailed account of what other publications have to say on the subject.
Support for the sentence is widespread, and a pardon would flout the rule of law, he says. “And pardoning Libby – a lawbreaker who may have been acting under orders from his superiors – would finally and fully associate Bush in the public’s mind with the one transgression that has forced a president out of office in the modern age: A cover up.”
