WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Friday to I. Lewis Scooter Libby, suggesting the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney had been treated unfairly by a special counsel at a moment when the president himself faces an escalating special counsel investigation.
Libby, Cheneys former chief of staff, was convicted in 2007 of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice following the 2003 leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. President George W. Bush later commuted Libbys 30-month prison sentence but didnt issue a pardon despite intense pressure from Cheney.
I dont know Mr. Libby, Trump said in a statement issued by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 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.
