Trump Pardons Famous Victim of “Special Counsel Gone Amok”

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Donald Trump has pardoned Scooter Libby, who was convicted in 2007 of lying about his role in exposing an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, because her husband was an annoyance to the Bush administration. There’s very little point to this pardon, since Libby never spent a day in jail and has long since been readmitted to the bar. However, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway explained, “Many people think that Scooter Libby was the victim of a special counsel gone amok.”

Hmmm. A special prosecutor run amok. I wonder who else might be a victim of a special prosecutor run amok? Oh right:

I suppose all of Mueller’s victims deserve pardons too, don’t they? Of course they do.

On the subject of Libby, however, I’ll offer up this hot take: he was basically just a spear carrier for his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. As long as Cheney is walking around free, I don’t really have a big problem with pardoning the fall guy.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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