Libby Freed

Did You Know - Libby Pardon Hypocritical

It gets a bit tiresome, does it not, when I keep posting articles about the hypocritical Bush administration? The newest article...

Tony Snow said that President Bush decided to commute Scooter Libby’s two and a half year-prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice, because it was “excessive.”

Yet last year the Bush Administration filed a “friend-of-the-court brief” with the Supreme Court, in an attempt to uphold a lower court’s ruling that a 33-month prison sentence for Victor Rita, who was convicted of the same exact charges, perjury and obstruction of justice, was “reasonable.”

From Pensito Review

Did You Know - Pardon Investigation

I guess we all tend to remember the past in some form that favors us the most. Still, is there any excuse for the following?

ETHICS -- SNOW DISTORTS HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS INTO PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PARDONS:

In his USA Today op-ed yesterday defending the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's two and a half year prison sentence, White House spokesman Tony Snow referenced former President Bill Clinton's issuance of pardons in the final hours of his administration, calling it "a mad rush to push through pardons with dizzying haste." Asked at the White House press briefing yesterday if he was trying to justify the President's extraordinary clemency for a former aide by saying "two wrongs make a right" due to some of Clinton's questionable pardons, Snow responded "no," adding, "I think what is interesting is perhaps it was just because he was on his way out, but while there was a small flurry, there was not much investigation of [Clinton's pardons]."

Snow is dishonestly misrepresenting the facts. Less than two weeks after Clinton issued his pardons, the House Government Reform Committee, headed by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), initiated hearings into the issue. A week later, the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), launched its own investigation. The following day, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, in conjunction with the FBI, launched a criminal investigation into Clinton's pardons. A week later, White announced that she was also investigating commutations that Clinton had issued. After Clinton waived executive privilege, three of his top aides, including Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta, testified before the House Government Reform Committee about the pardons. After all this, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) pledged to continue investigations, saying Congress must not "walk away" from the work left to be done. Over a year after the investigation began, federal prosecutors concluded "it wasn't appropriate to bring charges" in the case.

From the Progress Report 7/6/2007.