`Suspicion' about Libby's commutation

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[Sub-Driver]

`Suspicion' about Libby's commutation

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago

The Democrat probing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of a former White House aide said Sunday there is "the suspicion" the aide might have fingered others in the Bush administration if he served time.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman spoke of "the general impression" that Bush last week commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2 year sentence in the CIA leak case to keep Libby quiet. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled a committee hearing Wednesday on the matter.

Bush contended Libby's sentence was too harsh. Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity. The former operative said the White House was trying to discredit her husband, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy.

Conyers said the hearings would include pardons made by President Clinton, the first President Bush and possibly other past presidents. In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich.

"What we have here — and I think we should put it on the table right at the beginning — is that the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House, and that there was some kind of relationship here that does not exist in any of President Clinton's pardons, nor, according to those that we've talked to ... is that it's never existed before, ever," Conyers said in a broadcast interview Sunday.

[gusopol3]

this was always a play by Fitzgerald to be Cox/ Jaworski; Walton bought into it and played the role of Sirica by throwing Libby (McCord) into jail before appeals were done.It’s supposed to be Watergate redux, but the timing was always way off, because they’d already squeezed McCord by 6/73, which by dates would have been the equivalent of 6/05 in the Bush administration. Even if they had thrown Libby into an Allenwood (look how Hubbell “rolled over one more time for the Clintons”), he could have held out until the day after election day next year, when nobody would have cared about a pardon by the lame-duck and departing Bush. Anyway, that’s my theory. Looks like Conyers wants to play he’s Rodino, though.

[lolhelp]

People who would have told things about the Clintons were buried not pardoned. All except Roger and they better be watching him, he has always despised Hillery.

[MarkL]

A simple response is needed here...

The act of commutation or pardon is one of the powers granted to the President of the United States by the Constitution. It is a complete and unlimited right, not open to review nor reversal by the legislative nor the judicial branch.

Get over it. And go pound sand.

Mark

[Minn]

So Conyers is saying that Libby successfully extorted the President of The United States? What would have been his motive, spite? It’s kind of late in the game to be cutting deals for rolling on Rove, isn’t it? These people’s paranoid fantasies are something else.