Pardons Scooter Libby, bypassing DOJ process, four days after Cohen raid

Trump granted a full pardon to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, convicted in 2007 of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame CIA-leak investigation, saying in the announcement "I don't know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly." Documents later obtained by American Oversight showed the pardon was irregular: the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney had no clemency petition on file and learned of the pardon only as it was issued. Coming four days after the FBI raid on Michael Cohen and amid the Mueller investigation, the pardon of a perjury-and-obstruction convict prosecuted by a special counsel was widely interpreted — including by Plame and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who called the pardon's premise false — as a signal that witnesses who refused to cooperate with investigators could expect clemency.