Prague and a Pardon

Paul R. Pillar

Presidency Russia Iraq, United States

The principal motivation for Donald Trump’s pardon of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is obvious, as many commentators have quickly discerned.  The explanation flows directly from how Trump has used the power to pardon, how he has approached many other decisions, and his methods for dealing with his legal troubles.  Trump pardoned Libby to send a message to the Cohens, Manaforts, and all others who may have compromising information on him that they should not plea bargain with prosecutors and that if they stay loyal to Trump, he will pardon them, too.  Trump may also have had additional motivations, comparably personal and self-centered, that contributed to his move, but the increasing intensity of his legal difficulties makes the first explanation most persuasive.  As a maneuver to keep key witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and telling all they know, the move is one way to obstruct justice.

Trump doesn’t care about the facts of Libby’s case.  George W. Bush did care and reportedly studied the case carefully.  Although he commuted Libby’s sentence, he did not pardon him—despite heavy pressure to do so from Bush’s own vice president, Richard Cheney, who was Libby’s former boss.

Trump has given no indication of using presidential pardons for their proper purpose, which is to correct injustices that may emerge from the criminal justice system.  Libby’s pardon is only the third that Trump has issued.  The other two had nothing to do with correcting injustices but instead were about sending political messages. One was for Joe Arpaio, the sheriff from Arizona who flouted a court order to stop his “immigration round-ups” that were based on racial profiling.  The other was for a U.S. Navy seaman, Kristian Mark Saucier, who surreptitiously photographed the sensitive innards of a nuclear attack submarine and was given a one-year prison sentence for unauthorized retention of classified defense information.  That case came to Trump’s attention when Saucier’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued against a prison sentence on grounds that Hillary Clinton had not been indicted for her handling of email.  Trump himself then took up this comparison in his rhetoric attacking Clinton.

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