So Much for that Theory
Updated on June 20, 2006 at 10:54 am.
Not that long ago, media outlets and several politically savvy bloggers were parroting statements made by attorneys for former Bush Administration procurement official, David Safavian, suggesting that the government’s case against Safavian was relatively weak and the first trial in the Abramoff scandal would likely result in an acquittal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.
Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government’s chief procurement officer. No date was immediately set for sentencing.
Some of the same people are now speculating that as Fitzgerald turns up the heat on the administration in the Plame prosecution, Bush will face increasing pressure to hand out presidential “get out of jail free” cards:
[I]t seems the groundwork is now being laid for pardoning Scooter Libby for his alleged crimes relating to the Plame case. How this usually works is a tasked quote-meister like GOP lawyer and uber-insider Joe DiGenova is sent out to give quote floating and legitimizing the idea, to normalize it and make it part of respectable debate.
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DiGenova says he thinks the president will pardon Libby in January 2009. But other unnamed sources in the article tell Newsday that the president may feel it necessary to pardon Libby before he goes to trial because of how much adverse information could come out about him and I suspect, even more likely, about the vice president.
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Make no mistake, this is a trial balloon, an effort to test the waters and prepare the public for Libby’s eventual pardon. And you should expect that the president will pardon Libby, perhaps as soon as six months from now, because signals of Libby’s impending pardon will raise little concern or controversy in Washington or among name pundits.
I’d like to believe that such a move would amount to political mass suicide for the administration and the GOP leadership, but Josh Marshall is right more often than not about such things and nothing this administration pulls off would surprise me anymore.
UPDATE: Atrios: Josh is right.
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