美国国家公共电台 NPR President Trump Pardons 'Scooter' Libby, Former Cheney Chief Of Staff

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

President Trump¹ today took the extraordinary step of overruling his Republican predecessor² George W. Bush and granting a pardon to Lewis Scooter Libby. He served as chief of staff to Vice³ President Dick Cheney. Libby was convicted in 2007 of perjury⁴ and obstruction⁵ of justice.

Joining us to discuss this turn of events is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. And, Nina, this is going back more than a decade. What happened?

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE⁶: Well, Libby was accused and then convicted in connection with the leak of a CIA officer's identity, and that of course can be a crime. Because the attorney general was recused, the then-deputy attorney general, James Comey - yes, Audie, that James Comey - appointed longtime career prosecutor⁷ Patrick Fitzgerald to conduct the investigation⁸.

Fitzgerald ultimately didn't charge anyone with the actual leak. But he did charge Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, with obstruction and lying to the FBI and lying to the grand jury. And Libby was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

CORNISH: But to be clear, he didn't actually go to prison, right?

TOTENBERG: Correct. Vice President Cheney lobbied hard with President Bush asking that Libby be granted a pardon. Bush then asked a team of White House lawyers to examine the case, and they concluded there was substantial evidence justifying⁹ the conviction. So Bush told his vice president he wouldn't grant the pardon. Instead he would commute¹⁰ Libby's prison sentence.

And an angry Cheney then accused Bush of, quote, "leaving a good man wounded on the battlefield." And Bush said in his book that he was taken aback by the harshness of Cheney's remark. Aides to both men have said that after that the two were never really close again.

CORNISH: Why would President Trump choose to grant this pardon, a pardon that Bush refused?

TOTENBERG: It is rather peculiar¹¹ that a president who complains daily about leaks is pardoning a man convicted of involvement in a national security leak. But conservatives allied¹² with former Vice President Cheney have long championed a pardon. And one of them, by the way, is John Bolton, the new national security adviser¹³ to the president. And of course the pardon may send another message - that Trump is willing to use his pardon power to reward loyalists and to punish prosecutors¹⁴ he sees as running amok.

CORNISH: So this goes back to James Comey, right? I mean, he appointed the Libby prosecutor.

TOTENBERG: Yes, Comey, who went on to become FBI director and was himself fired by Trump, leading to the appointment of Robert Muller, another former FBI director who Trump almost daily accuses of conducting a witch hunt.

CORNISH: President Trump said in a written statement today that he was pardoning Scooter Libby because one of the witnesses against him recanted her testimony¹⁵ and claimed that the prosecutor misled her.

TOTENBERG: That would be Judith Miller¹⁶, a former reporter for The New York Times and a one-time NPR freelance reporter. She spent 85 days in jail refusing to testify about her conversations with Libby related to the leak. And she testified only after Libby released her from her promise to him of confidentiality¹⁷. But of course she was one of at least eight witnesses, many of them high-ranking Bush administration officials and CIA officers as well as other reporters, who contradicted Libby's story. Libby's lawyers argued that his statements to the grand jury and the FBI weren't lies. They were simply different recollections than others had.

CORNISH: President Bush in the end saved Lewis Libby from jail. What does Libby get from a pardon?

TOTENBERG: Well, a pardon doesn't void your conviction. It is official forgiveness. Libby was disbarred after the conviction. But in 2016 he was reinstated, and in reinstating Libby the Bar Association did mention the Miller recantation. Basically I think Libby probably gets at this point is some sense of vindication¹⁸, a sense that his name has been wiped clean of a stain.

CORNISH: That's NPR's Nina Totenberg. Nina, thank you.

TOTENBERG: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOEY PECORARO'S "FINDING PARKING")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 predecessor   

n.前辈，前任

参考例句：

• It will share the fate of its predecessor.它将遭受与前者同样的命运。
• The new ambassador is more mature than his predecessor.新大使比他的前任更成熟一些。

3 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

4 perjury   

n.伪证；伪证罪

参考例句：

• You'll be punished if you procure the witness to commit perjury.如果你诱使证人作伪证，你要受罚的。
• She appeared in court on a perjury charge.她因被指控做了伪证而出庭受审。

5 obstruction   

n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物

参考例句：

• She was charged with obstruction of a police officer in the execution of his duty.她被指控妨碍警察执行任务。
• The road was cleared from obstruction.那条路已被清除了障碍。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 prosecutor   

n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人

参考例句：

• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。
• The prosecutor would tear your testimony to pieces.检查官会把你的证言驳得体无完肤。

8 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

9 justifying   

证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护）

参考例句：

• He admitted it without justifying it. 他不加辩解地承认这个想法。
• The fellow-travellers'service usually consisted of justifying all the tergiversations of Soviet intenal and foreign policy. 同路人的服务通常包括对苏联国内外政策中一切互相矛盾之处进行辩护。

10 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

11 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

12 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

13 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

14 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

15 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

16 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

17 confidentiality   

n.秘而不宣，保密

参考例句：

• They signed a confidentiality agreement. 他们签署了一份保守机密的协议。
• Cryptography is the foundation of supporting authentication, integrality and confidentiality. 而密码学是支持认证、完整性和机密性机制的基础。

18 vindication   

n.洗冤，证实

参考例句：

• There is much to be said in vindication of his claim.有很多理由可以提出来为他的要求作辩护。
• The result was a vindication of all our efforts.这一结果表明我们的一切努力是必要的。