Bush Refuses to Explain Clemency Order for Libby As House Panel Opens Probe [View All]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/bush_refuses_to_explain_libby.php

Bush refuses to explain Libby order

Bush Refuses to Explain Clemency Order for Libby As House Panel Opens Probe

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
AP News

Jul 11, 2007 18:29 EDT

President Bush refused to explain to Congress on Wednesday why he commuted the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The husband of the CIA agent outed in the case testified during a House hearing that the clemency grant had cast a pall of suspicion over the presidency.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., Bush counsel Fred Fielding said Congress had no authority to review a presidential clemency decision.

"To allow such an inquiry would chill the complete and candid advice that President Bush, and future presidents, must be able to rely upon in discharging their constitutional responsibilities," he wrote.

The letter came in the middle of a politically charged hearing by the Judiciary panel on Bush's move last week to erase Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence. Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of obstructing justice in a federal probe of the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's identity.

more...