President Donald Trump pardoned former top Dick Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Friday because "the president thought it was the right thing to do," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
"Pardoning Libby was the right thing to do after the principal witness recanted her testimony," she said at the daily briefing.
Sanders noted that a federal appeals court reinstated Libby's bar membership to practice law in 2016 "after being presented with credible evidence in support of his version of events — and it appears that a key prosecution witness had changed her recollections."
Libby, 67, who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in 2007 after the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame four years earlier.
Former President George W. Bush later commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence, but did not pardon him despite intense pressure from Cheney.
No one was charged with the leak.
In announcing his decision, President Trump said that he did not know Libby, but that "for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.
"Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life," he said.
Sanders beat back questions that Trump's pardon was sending a message to those witnesses who might by cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
"One thing has nothing to do with the other," she said. "Every case should be reviewed on their own merits."
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