Comey: Trump’s pardon of Scooter Libby ‘an attack on the rule of law’

Former FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday that President Trump’s pardon of Lewis “Scooter” Libby is an “attack on the rule of law,” and insisted there was no reason to doubt his 2007 conviction.

“There’s a reason George W. Bush, for whom Scooter Libby worked, refused to pardon him after looking at all the facts in the case,” Comey said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“It was an overwhelming case. There’s no reason that’s consistent with justice to pardon him, and so it’s an attack on the rule of law, in my view.”

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Libby, the former chief of staff to former Vice President Cheney, was convicted in 2007 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the probe into the disclosure of the identity of former covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Libby was initially sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine but was ultimately spared jail time after former President George W. Bush commuted his sentence. But Bush refused to grant him a full pardon.

Trump pardoned the former Cheney aide last week, saying that, although he had never met him, he had heard that Libby had “been treated unfairly.”

Comey’s comments came as he enters into day three of a media blitz to mark the release of his memoir, “A Higher Loyalty:Truth, Lies, and Leadership.” That book offers a biting assessment of Trump as an unethical leader who acts more like a mafia boss than a president.

Trump abruptly fired Comey in May 2017, ostensibly because of his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of State.

The president later acknowledged that he had considered the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia as part of his decision to fire Comey.