Similarly, President Clinton pardoned his CIA director, John Deutsch. The pardon of Deutch spared the former CIA director any criminal charges for mishandling secret information on his home computer. Deutch, had resigned in 1996 and had his security clearance stripped. He had been considering a deal with the Justice Department in which he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of keeping classified data on home computers when President Clinton provided a pardon.
President Clinton pardoned each and every person convicted of anything in the investigation of former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy by independent counsel Donald Smaltz. Those persons included Tyson Foods official Archie Schaffer, whose conviction was pending on appeal at the time of the pardon. These pardons didn't go through the "normal" process at the Justice Department. In fact President Clinton had 47 pardons that did not go through the Justice Department process.
The record in the trial was clear that Libby had no knowledge about whether Valerie Plame's status was in any way sensitive, classified or covert.
(Parenthetically, Plame's status as a partisan Democrat who contributed to Al Gore's 2000 campaign is treated as covert information by the mainstream media).
Further, the trial showed that the CIA did not treat the information as sensitive. The CIA spokesperson, Bill Harlow, confirmed her employment for Novak and passed the information on to the vice president's press aide without any warning that the information could not be shared with the press. Another CIA official testified he told Libby that "Wilson's wife" worked at the CIA without any warning regarding disclosure. And Joe Wilson, himself, wrote in his book that his wife told the CIA press office before Novak's column was released, but the CIA did nothing to halt the disclosure. Most importantly, Libby was not a source for Robert Novak.
Many witnesses had accounts that were refuted by other witnesses; yet their faulty memories were not criminalized. Just one example: Ari Fleischer testified with immunity that he did not tell Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, about Plame. Walter Pincus had notes that he had.
Most prosecutors would walk away from such a case - a case based on a faulty premise and focused on faulty memories months after the fact. President Bush would be well within presidential authority and past presidential practice if he were to rectify this travesty in the near future.
My hope is he pardons Libby now!