Trump Rightly Pardons Scooter Libby A Decade After Bush Refused

On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced a full pardon for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former Bush administration official unfairly caught up in the investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity. Trump explained in a statement, “I don’t know Mr. 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.”

President Trump heard right. In 2003, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey appointed special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to The Washington Post. Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson was a prominent Bush administration critic, and Fitzgerald immediately investigated Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, in connection with the leak.