Up Next for Libby: How to Get Pardoned

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The pressing question for Scooter Libby, now that he’s been convicted on four of the five counts against him and faces 25 years in prison, is how to get off the hook. Who will pardon him and when? The answer to the first question is Bush, probably, but would W. really do it in the middle of the 2008 presidential campaign? That would surely sink the already rickety Republican ship.

Libby is to be sentenced in June and cynical professionals in Washington don’t expect him to do any jail time. They know he’ll get off one way or another. Key pardons of the past:

President Jerry Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for official misconduct on September 8,1974. Of course, that was after Nixon resigned. At the time polls showed Americans were against the pardon.

Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam war resisters.

George H.W. Bush pardoned 75 people. They included six top Reagan administration officials tied up in the Iran contra scandal. (Bush senior owed his very political existence to Reagan. Reagan trounced him in the Republicans primaries in ’80, then magnanimously offered him the vice presidency, which the Connecticut blueblood grabbed.) Casper Weinberger, secretary of Defense, was convicted of lying to the independent counsel. He was pardoned by Bush Sr.

Clinton pardoned billionaire Marc Rich.

— James Ridgeway