President Donald Trump has repeatedly torn into Robert Mueller's Russia probe as a "witch hunt" — but The Weekly Standard says the special counsel is acting responsibly.
"Mueller in our view has so far conducted himself with fairness and admirable restraint …" the leading conservative magazine said in an editorial published Friday.
The opinion came as the publication's editors praised Trump following reports he plans to pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted in 2005 and convicted of obstruction of justice.
"It's years overdue … Libby was the first and only victim of special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's mission — to find the source who had 'outed' CIA officer Valerie Plame to journalists. Fitzgerald had been named special counsel by none other than Deputy Attorney General James Comey," the editors write.
"The president's many critics will contend that this has less to do with Libby than with special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump, we're certain to hear, is taking a shot at the credibility of special counsels by emphasizing their tendency to indict people not for committing the underlying crime but for false testimony.
"Certainly the fact that Comey appointed Fitzgerald is not unrelated to the president's intention to pardon Libby. Trump may be hinting at his ability to pardon people he feels are wrongly prosecuted by the Mueller investigation."
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