Bush Says He's Not Ruling Out Pardon for Libby

Libby was charged with lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how and when he learned of Plame, and what he told reporters about her. Walton sentenced him last month to the 30-month prison term that Bush commuted Monday.

Yesterday, Bush called his decision "a considered judgment" and said he stands by it. White House press secretary Tony Snow sought to portray the action as a middle ground that avoids what the president has called an "excessive" prison term while leaving the felony convictions intact.

He said Libby's convictions themselves are "a very severe penalty" that "has profound impacts on his ability to earn a living as a lawyer, because he's not going to be able to practice law. So this is hardly a slap on the wrist, in terms of penalty."

Snow also made clear that the White House will stick to its policy of declining to comment on details of the case, including the involvement of other officials, because the commutation allows Libby to continue his appeal.

Asked yesterday whether the president should fire his top political adviser, Karl Rove, who was shown at the trial to have participated in the leaks about Plame, Snow replied: "[W]e are not going to make comments in detail until the legal process is over. And it is not; there is still an appeal."

Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University, called the commutation "a weird decision. It's neither here nor there." He said that, politically, "the administration was trying to reap the benefits of giving Libby his freedom while not creating a firestorm about a pardon. But I don't think it'll work."

Defense lawyers and experts on federal sentencing guidelines said the president's actions are at odds with the administration's position on those guidelines. The Bush Justice Department has opposed attempts to impose sentences more lenient than what the guidelines call for, even in cases involving white-collar criminals with no criminal history, such as Libby.

"On the one hand, you have the administration taking the position in every federal sentencing that a guidelines sentence should be imposed," said Barry Boss, a Washington defense lawyer and former co-chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Practitioners Advisory Group. "And then you have President Bush saying in his statement that the guidelines are too harsh."

The president has the authority to commute any sentence at any time. However, the Justice Department has its own procedures for recommending commutations to a president. Under those rules, Libby would not have been eligible until he had started to serve his prison term and ended his appeals. Jeffress said yesterday that defense attorneys had not asked Justice or Bush to commute Libby's sentence.

Several legal observers noted that the administration had opposed a plaintiff in a recent Supreme Court case who sought a lighter penalty than the 33 months in prison to which he was sentenced after convictions for perjury and obstruction of justice.

In Rita v. United States, Victor A. Rita argued for leniency on the grounds that he was a 24-year veteran of the Marine Corps, with tours of duty in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War, a longtime employee of the immigration service and in poor health. The government contended that the district judge considered those factors and had imposed the sentence in a reasonable way.

The Supreme Court ruled on June 21 that sentences that fall within the federal guidelines may be presumed "reasonable" by appeals courts reviewing them. That was the position advocated by the solicitor general.

Staff writers Michael A. Fletcher and John Solomon contributed to this report.