Former Vice President Dick Cheney s chief of staff Scooter Libby was pardoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, more than a decade after federal prosecutors brought perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Libby.
these pardons follow a trend for president trump. he likes to pardon supporter, high profile ones. he also seems to like pardoning people facing issues he knows something about. we saw this when he pardoned former sheriff joe arpaio, a huge trump fan, who was convicted of contempt of court in a case related to racial profiling. conservative pundit dinesh d souza who compared trump to lincoln also got a pardon. he pleaded guilty to illegal campaign donations, a charge that hits home for this president. and then there was scooter libby, the scooter libby pardon, the former dick cheney s chief of staff who was convicted of pi perjury and obstruction in 2017. libby was prosecuted for lying the fbi and obstruction of justice. the kicker, the man who authorized the special counsel in the case was none other than james comey. in the news of trump s pardon of libby came the day after
who they re going to prosecute and then hunt for a crime. these pardons follow a trend for president trump. he likes to pardon supporters, high-profile ones. he also seems to like pardoning people facing issues he knows something about. we saw this when he pardoned former sheriff joe arpaio, a huge trump fan, who was convicted of contempt of court in a case related to racial profiling. conservative pundit dinesh d souza, who compared trump to lincoln, also got a presidential pardon. he pleaded guilty to illegal campaign donations, a charge that hits home for this president. and then there was scooter libby, the scooter libby pardon, former vice president dick cheney s chief of staff, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction in 2017. libby was prosecuted for lying the fbi and obstruction of justice in an investigation. the kicker, the man who authorized the special counsel in the case was none other than james comey. and the news of trump s pardon
example, stephen miller was pushing for a pardon for arpaio or in other instances a lot of trump s allies pushing for the scooter libby pardon such as joe digenova and almost joined his legal team, of course. one consideration. another, that the stakes are higher if the president were to pardon manafort for himself. legally. manafort, of course, is directly implicated in the investigation into trump s own campaign. he has exposure there. of course, the final thing is that pardoning manafort may be useless, because he may still be vulnerable to being prosecuted on a state level. there are a ton of things pushing back against the idea that trump will pardon manafort. that said i think manafort did go into his first trial expecting that the president would pardon him, because no one thought he would actually go to trial. i think he may still be expecting that going into this second trial which is why it s surprising he s decided to go through with it. that may change, of course, before se
natasha, rudy giuliani talking a bit about this an argument made to the washington post, concern, bob mueller could take this pardon and use it as evidence of obstruction. help us understand the calculus going through his legal team s mind and to the extent that dovetails with the president s thinking. a lot of the language donald trump used about paul manafort since his trial started and since he was convicted has mirrored exactly the language he used before and after he pardoned joe arpaio, scooter libby and one more i m forgetting. sousa. praising their decency. criticizing unfairness. treated unfairly, et cetera. verify bbatim what he s said ab paul manafort. the difference, no one in the white house is pushing for a manafort pardon, no one in his ear saying this would be good, help you, really rile up your base. paul manafort doesn t have those kinds of allies in the white house pushing for like, for