Donald Trump pardons ‘Scooter’ Libby for lying to investigators in possible dig at James Comey
Comey, then deputy US attorney general, had appointed the special counsel who prosecuted Libby in 2007. Trump’s pardon comes a day after previews of Comey’s new book, critical of the president, emerged
US President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Friday to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to George W. Bush’s vice-president, Dick Cheney, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2007.
Trump said he does not know Libby, 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,” according to a statement issued by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders announcing the pardon.
The pardon came one day after excerpts were released of ex-FBI director James Comey’s new book, A Higher Loyalty, which is highly critical of Trump, who fired him. Then the deputy attorney general, Comey appointed the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, who pursued the Libby case.
Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice following the 2003 leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former career U.S. diplomat, had criticized the Iraq war and contended that reports of Nigerian sales of uranium to Iraq were false.
