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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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July 3rd,
2007 - Bush Commutes Libby Sentence, but Conviction Stands |
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Bush Commutes Libby
Sentence, but Conviction Stands By Amy Goldstein Washington Post July 3, 2007; 11:58 AM President Bush commuted the
sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby yesterday, sparing Vice
President Cheney's former chief of staff 2 1/2 years in prison after a
federal appeals court had refused to let Libby remain free while he appeals
his conviction for lying to federal investigators. Bush, who for months had
sidestepped calls from conservatives to come to Libby's aid, broke his silence
early yesterday evening, touching off an immediate uproar from Democrats who
accused the White House of circumventing the rule of law to protect one of
its own. The president announced his
decision in a written statement that laid out the factors he had weighed.
Bush said he decided to "respect" the jury's verdict that Libby was
guilty of four felonies for lying about his role in the leak of a covert CIA
officer's identity. But the president said Libby's "exceptional public
service" and prior lack of a criminal record led him to conclude that
the 30-month sentence handed down by a judge last month was
"excessive." "He did not see fit to
have Scooter Libby taken to jail," White House press secretary Tony Snow
said this morning in a news briefing. Bush noted in his statement
that he had originally promised not to intervene until Libby had exhausted
his appeals. But he stepped in short of that point. "With the denial of
bail being upheld and incarceration imminent," Bush said, "I
believe it is now important to react to that decision." Although he eliminated
Libby's prison term, Bush did not grant him a full pardon, which was sought
by some conservatives and would have erased his conviction. As a consequence,
Libby will still have to pay a $250,000 fine and will remain on probation for
two years. The president said Libby's punishment remained "harsh,"
in part because his professional reputation "is forever damaged." "This is hardly a slap on
the wrist," Snow said. "... To think of this as the bestowal of a
favor is to utterly misconstrue the nature of the deliberations." Bush commuted the sentence
hours after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit rejected Libby's request to postpone his prison term
while he pursued appeals. The panel concluded that his grounds for appeal
were unlikely to be strong enough to prevail in higher courts. The appellate judges'
unanimous opinion upheld an identical ruling slightly more than two weeks ago
by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, the trial judge in Libby's case.
After a month-long trial that forced presidential aides and prominent
journalists onto the witness stand, Libby was found guilty of two counts of
perjury and one count each of lying to FBI agents and obstructing a federal
investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the
name of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Bush has granted far fewer
pardons and commutations than any of his predecessors, dating to John F.
Kennedy. He commuted three previous prison terms during his 6 1/2 years in
office. At a time when his
popularity is as low as any president's in modern history, Bush's action also
defied public opinion. Shortly after Libby was convicted in March, three
national public opinion polls found that seven in 10 Americans said they
would oppose a pardon of Libby. Still, the president
appeared to calculate that he would antagonize his conservative base too
severely if he did not provide Libby some form of reprieve, according to
people close to the White House. Lea Anne McBride, a
spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to say whether the vice president had a role
in the decision, other than to say that Cheney supports it. Last night, an array of
Democrats, including several presidential candidates, reacted to Bush's move
with derision. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.), a White House hopeful,
said: "Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes
have consequences could take the action he did today." House Judiciary Committee
Chairman John Conyers Jr. (Mich.) said in a statement that "until now,
it appeared that the President merely turned a blind eye to a high ranking
administration official leaking classified information. The President's
action today makes it clear that he condones such activity." Conyers was expected to move
swiftly to conduct hearings on the commutation, congressional sources said. All but a few Republicans
were conspicuously silent. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) said:
"President Bush did the right thing today in commuting the prison term
for Scooter Libby. The prison sentence was overly harsh, and the punishment
did not fit the crime." Former senator Fred D.
Thompson (Tenn.), an unannounced presidential candidate who has helped lead
Libby's defense fund and called for Bush to pardon Libby, said: "This
will allow a good American who has done a lot for his country to resume his life." Libby did not comment
publicly on his reprieve from the sentence he received from Walton four weeks
ago. One of his attorneys, William H. Jeffress Jr., said yesterday that the
legal team learned of Bush's decision just 15 minutes before it was announced
publicly. Theodore V. Wells Jr.,
Libby's lead attorney, said in a statement last night, "Mr. Libby and
his family wish to express their gratitude for the President's decision
today." Wells signaled an intent to keep pursuing appeals, saying,
"We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence." Special Counsel Patrick J.
Fitzgerald, who led the three-year leak investigation and was the chief
prosecutor during Libby's trial, said he did not challenge the president's
prerogative under the Constitution to commute prison sentences. But Fitzgerald disputed
Bush's characterization of Libby's sentence as excessive, saying: "An
experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and
then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is
fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of
justice as equals." Fitzgerald said Libby
"remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies," and he vowed to
continue to fight Libby's efforts to overturn his conviction through appeals. Libby, a 56-year-old lawyer,
was Cheney's right-hand man for nearly five years and helped write the
administration's national security policies. He was the only person charged
in the leak investigation, which penetrated to the highest echelons of the
White House. No one was charged with the leak itself. Fitzgerald interviewed both
Bush and Cheney as part of the probe. The vice president had been expected to
be a star witness at the trial, but he ultimately did not testify. Libby was convicted March 6.
Prosecutors convinced the jury that Libby deliberately obscured his role in a
White House campaign in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war began, to discredit
Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The CIA had sent Wilson to
the African nation of Niger in 2002 to assess reports that Iraq had tried to
buy nuclear material there for weapons. He concluded that the reports were
groundless. Later, when Bush and his aides repeated them anyway, Wilson
accused the president of twisting his findings to justify the war to the
public. Prosecutors maintained that
administration officials, including Libby, leaked Plame's identity and CIA
position to insinuate that the agency had chosen Wilson for the Niger mission
because of nepotism. Defense attorneys said that Libby had not sought to
deceive investigators but had innocently misremembered what he knew and said
about Plame, because she was insignificant to him. In a statement yesterday,
Wilson said that he and his wife are "deeply disappointed" by
Bush's decision. "The president's actions send the message that leaking
classified information for political purposes is acceptable," he said.
"Mr. Libby not only endangered Valerie and our family, but also our
country's national security." Douglas A. Berman, a law
professor at Ohio State University who is an expert on federal criminal
sentencing policies, said it is "hypocritical and appalling from a
president whose Justice Department is always fighting" attempts by
judges and lawmakers to lower the punishment called for under federal
sentencing guidelines. Berman said Bush's message amounted to "My friend
Scooter shouldn't have to serve 30 months in prison because I don't want him
to." Margaret Colgate Love, the
pardon attorney in the Justice Department from 1990 to 1997, primarily in the
Clinton administration, called Bush's action "very unusual" and
recalled that her office would not consider applications for a commutation
"unless the person had already started serving his sentence." But
she said that the president, as Bill Clinton showed in the controversial
pardons he issued the day he left office, has wide discretion. Staff writers Robert Barnes,
Christopher Lee and Debbi Wilgoren, political researcher Zachary A. Goldfarb,
and washingtonpost.com staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070300981_pf.html |