We love handicapping exotic bets and props here at Point-Spreads.com and I must tell you, we got very excited when Sportsbook.com posted odds on Scooter Libby’s chance of a pardon before President George W. Bush leaves office in January of 2009. The Odds (-280) point to YES ; Libby gets pardoned while those opposing a pardon are getting +200 juice that Bush leaves him in Federal Prison. And who is opposing a pardon? Just about any Democrat on Capitol Hill. If the Democrats had their druthers, they would like to see Karl Rove sharing a cell with Libby but that’s another story.
Just in case politics isn’t your thing and you seldom venture beyond the Sports Pages of your local rag, please allow me to fill you in on who I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is and why he’s in jail.
Libby served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, assistant to the Vice President for national security affairs, and an assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-2005. He resigned from his senior White House position hours after he was indicted in federal court on five felony counts of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in the CIA leak grand jury investigation into the “Plame affair.”
According to a recent CNN report, Federal officials began an investigation in December 2003 into how the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame was divulged to reporters in the weeks before Robert Novak named her in a July 14, 2003, column. Prosecutors argued Libby lied about how he learned of Plame's CIA role to protect his job. Her role, they said, was deliberately released in retribution for her husband's report. Libby was not charged with the actual leak. In USA vs. Libby, he was found guilty of four of the five counts and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Libby is the first sitting White House official to be indicted in 130 years and the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since National Security Adviser John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair in 1990. The key word here is “Sitting.” Multitudes of White House officials have ended up in jail but usually after they have resigned. It’s often the job of a White House official to be the fall guy or goat to cover a sitting President’s back side. Look at the Richard Nixon administration. How many officials went to jail over Watergate?
Now back to the question. Will Scooter Libby receive a pardon prior to Bush’s leaving office? This is a slam-dunk. Of course he will be pardoned. That’s the name of the game in Washington. A president will almost always pardon his “Fall Guy.” Presidents don't go to jail, their aides go for them.
The down side to this bet is you will have to wait 18 months before you can collect your winnings.
