04 JUN 07 / "Pardon Libby"

Scooter Libby, convicted in March on charges of lying and obstructing justice while serving as the vice president's chief of staff, will be sentenced tomorrow. He faces a maximum of three years in federal prison as recommended by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House conspired to exact retribution against former Ambassador Joe Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA employee.

Libby became the primary target of the overzealous Left once it was clear that no one more senior in the Bush administration would be legally implicated in the publication of Plame's name in an article written by Robert Novak. Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, had been critical of the decision to invade Iraq in an editorial in the New York Times. Plame had recommended her husband for a trip to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had been trying to acquire Yellow Cake uranium.

The case against Libby should never have been brought because there was no underlying violation of the federal statute in question --  the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. It was Richard Armitage, himself a critic of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, who gave Plame's identity to reporter Robert Novak. If the statute was violated, one wonders why Armitage wasn't charged. One also wonders whether Plame was actually a covert agent in 2003. Despite her recent congressional testimony, that is still an open question -- the answer to which depends upon whom you ask.

In any event, private conversations among high ranking members of the Bush administration concerning Valerie Plame's employment with the CIA certainly should not constitute a violation of federal law. Indeed, if Libby did lie under oath, why doesn't Fitzgerald follow the lie to its source?

The fact that child rapists across the country are sometimes sentenced to probation by liberal judges while Scooter Libby is subjected to 3 years of imprisonment is a troubling indictment of the United States criminal justice system. In interviews after the verdict, some jurors made statements that led to speculation that the intense media coverage had influenced their thinking. Scooter Libby was wrongfully charged, wrongfully convicted, and should not be wrongfully imprisoned.

Many Democrats believe that Libby should not be pardoned, but their criticism rings flat since President Clinton pardoned a real criminal, Marc Rich, who was on the lam in Switzerland to evade prosecution for tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. President Bush will probably not announce a decision on a pardon of Libby until the appeal process has exhausted itself, but I think Libby will receive a pardon because this president does what he believes in his heart to be right.