President Donald Trump reportedly plans to pardon I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice after a leak that disclosed a CIA agent’s name.
Sources told ABC News and The Washington Post that Trump has been considering the pardon for a few months, but there was no clear timeline for when it might happen.
While there was also no sense of the president’s motive for a pardon, John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, was among those who advocated for Libby’s exoneration, The New York Times reported.
The chief prosecutor in Libby’s case, Patrick Fitzgerald, also happens to be friends with former FBI Director James Comey.
Libby was charged in 2005 with lying to the FBI, lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in an investigation of who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, who at the time worked as a covert CIA operative, to various journalists. He was sentenced in 2007 to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 for his role in the leak case.
President George W. Bush refused to grant a pardon to Libby, despite Cheney pushing for it, although he did commute Libby’s 30-month prison sentence.
Trump’s most controversial pardon to date was that of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio last August. Arpaio has a long history of discrimination and unlawful policing towards Latinos. He’s now running for Senate.
CORRECTION: The subheadline and text in a previous version of this story indicated Libby was charged with leaking Plame’s identity. In fact, he was charged with lying to the FBI, lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in the course of the investigation into who leaked Plame’s identity.