Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the [tag]CIA[\/tag] [tag]leak[\/tag] probe, President George W. [tag]Bush[\/tag] must weigh whether to [tag]pardon[\/tag] former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” [tag]Libby[\/tag], the only one indicted in the three-year investigation.<\/p>\n
Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge [tag]Rove[\/tag].<\/p>\n
“I think ultimately, of course, there are going to be pardons,” said Joseph diGenova, a former prosecutor and an old Washington hand who shares that view with many pundits. “These are the kinds of cases in which historically presidents have given pardons,” said the veteran Republican attorney.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Newsday speculated that Libby seems to be “goading the [tag]White House[\/tag] into issuing a pardon” by demanding sensitive, sometimes embarrassing, materials. For that matter, the possibility of Dick Cheney’s testimony in Libby’s trial is an unpleasant scenario for the Bush gang, which a pardon would eliminate.<\/p>\n
This is definitely something to keep an eye on, particularly next year. Newsday suggested that a Libby pardon could come almost immediately after the midterm elections if Republicans maintain their majorities because the [tag]president[\/tag] knows the congressional GOP does not believe in oversight or accountability. If Dems retake the majority, Bush would likely use Libby’s trial “as an excuse not to cooperate with any congressional investigations into the leak.” Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With [tag]Patrick Fitzgerald[\/tag]’s criminal investigation into the [tag]Plame[\/tag] scandal apparently over, the focus now shifts to [tag]Scooter Libby[\/tag]’s criminal trial, which could be a major source of embarrassment for the Bush White House. That is, unless the president intervenes. Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the [tag]CIA[\/tag] [tag]leak[\/tag] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}