WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump granted a pardon on Friday to Scooter Libby, the chief of staff to then-Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of perjury in 2007.
The move to pardon Libby — who became embroiled in a special counsel investigation involving then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey — comes at a resonant moment. Trump himself is wrapped up in a special counsel investigation that he’s decried as a “witch hunt,” and is fuming about a book Comey has written detailing his interactions with Trump when he was serving as FBI director.
In a statement, Trump conceded he has no personal relationship with Libby, whose case has been held up by conservatives as an example of a special counsel overstepping his bounds.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House. “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.”
Libby’s attorney, Bill Jeffress, told CNN on Friday afternoon that the former vice president’s chief of staff’s pardon was “well-deserved and overdue.” The White House had not been in contact with Libby’s primary trial lawyer, who learned about the potential pardon Thursday night from media reports. He then emailed Libby, whose reaction was not to celebrate to soon, Jeffress said.
