President Donald Trump plans to pardon Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, reports ABC News citing ‘sources familiar with the president’s thinking.’
Trump has already signed off on the pardon, and had been considering it for several months, sources told ABC News.
Excerpt:
Early in his term, Trump pardoned controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he was found guilty in July on criminal contempt charges stemming from his refusal to stop imprisoning suspected undocumented immigrants.
Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, a former covert CIA operative. Then-President George Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence, sparing him prison time, but didn’t pardon him.
After Libby claimed that he couldn’t have been the source of the leak, multiple people came forward to testify that they learned of Plame’s identity from Libby prior to when Libby said he had first received the information.
At trial, Libby claimed to have simply forgotten he actually learned about the identity from Cheney a month before he said he had.
Since the conviction, Libby has since had his law license restored and former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell restored his voting rights in 2013.
As @maddow just noted, crimes for which Scooter Libby was convicted include lying to the FBI, and obstruction of justice. Perhaps this is Trump setting us up to be prepared for pardons for Flynn, Manafort, and all the others. https://t.co/AOUQltOsbF
— ???? ?????? (@xeni) April 13, 2018