Seems he wants to wait until after the appeals process, which, not so coincidentally, could last until near the end of his (Bush's) term, when a pardon for Libby would be less of a political liability.
Bush did not rule out a pardon but implied that it is not imminent. "I'm pretty much going to stay out of it until the course -- the case has finally run its final -- the course it's going to take," he told Univision during an interview before a trip to Latin America that begins today.
Of course, his defense attorney (one of them, anyway) thinks that he should have already been pardoned -
...attorney William Jeffress Jr. said in an interview. "Now, I've seen all the calls for a pardon. And I agree with them. To me, he should have been pardoned six months ago or a year ago."
Still others feel that the issue isn't with Libby's actions, but with the prosecutor's (Patrick Fitzgerald) -
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (Miss.) said: "It's a terrible miscarriage of justice and abuse of prosecutorial power.
So far, I haven't seen evidence to support that assertion, but if anyone should recognize an abusive prosecutor, it's a Republican.
Interesting that a pardon is even being considered at this point.
Bush's own policy toward pardons would seem to work against the idea of pardoning Libby before he serves prison time -
Bush has granted 113 pardons over six years, nearly a modern low, and has never pardoned anyone who had not been released from prison.
This might be a great opportunity to start a bipartisan push (remember the furor over Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich? It'll be easy to get the support of some Republicans for this.) to place some minor limits on the power of the President to issue pardons.
Note: In a bit of delicious irony in the event that Libby does receive a pardon, it should be noted that he was Marc Rich's lawyer.
A few suggested changes to Presidential pardons:
- - - No preemptive pardons. The recipient of the pardon must have actually already been convicted of the crime for which the pardon is issued. Sorry President Nixon.
- - - No secret pardons. Next up: no secret trials.
- - - If the recipient of the pardon is a government employee, or presidential campaign or political party contributor, no pardon could be issued until the convict had served at least 5 years in prison. In the case of a sentence of less than 5 years in prison, no pardon could be issued until the conviction had stood for at least 5 years.
Call this the "Marc Rich" clause. And the "Scooter Libby" clause.
- - - In addition, for government employees/campaign contributors, the pardons would not be complete, they would be conditional. If the recipient were to later re-offend, the pardon would be vacated, the original conviction re-instituted, and the convict would forfeit any eligibility for pardons in the future.
Call both of these the "we don't want the fall guys; we want the big kahunas" clauses. And the "don't get dirty again" clauses.
Will these or any other changes to the scope of Presidential pardons happen during this Administration? Almost certainly not - if this President and his staffers were honest enough to implement such changes, they wouldn't be needed in the first place.
Plus I'm not sure our prison system, regardless of how rapidly it's growing, would have enough space to hold all of the criminals working for the current Administration.
Later!
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