President Bush Commutes Scooter Libby's Sentence

Oh, what a way to start the week. After a federal court refused to delay the imposition of his sentence, Scooter Libby got the get out of jail free card from President Bush.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, and Bush said his action still "leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."

Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

Here's the text of the proclamation of clemency by President Bush. You can bet that Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson will have something to say about this and the media will be knocking down doors to get their opinion on it.

I can already tell you what they're going to say; they're going to claim that the commutation of the sentence is a gross miscarriage of justice and that President Bush is engaging in a cover up of the situation and should be further investigated.

All this comes as a result of an overzealous prosecutor who could find no evidence that a crime was committed in the original intent of his investigation - to determine whether someone leaked Valerie Plame's identity. It turns out that it was none other than Richard Armitage who leaked the name, but it was deemed inadvertent and therefore did not rise to the level of a crime.

Libby was grilled and caught in a perjury trap, where his testimony at different points in time differed.

This also ends speculation over whether Bush would wait until the end of the legal appeals by Libby or until the end of his term in office before issuing a pardon. I had expected him to wait until the end of the legal process before going forward with the pardon/clemency at the earliest, but this also has the effect of providing some salve to the wounds caused by the bitter fight over the immigration bill.

It is a political decision as much as it is a legal one. Bush needs to regain currency with the GOP base, and this may help in mending fences with the base. It doesn't really matter what the left thinks on this, since they already oppose everything the Administration stands for, so there was really little downside for him here.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has more. President Bush could still issue a pardon, which completely wipes the slate clean, but I get the feeling the clemency will stand. If Libby wants to continue the appeals process, he'll get that opportunity.

UPDATE:
To give some context to this decision, President Bush has used the power of commutation or pardon far less than his predecessors. This is only the fourth commutation of sentence, while President Clinton commuted the sentences of 61 people. It is possible that the number will pick up as Bush prepares to leave office, but it is interesting to see when and how Bush does use this power.