You don’t hear many Democrats calling on Bush to grant Scooter Libby a full pardon. But today at the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the president’s commutation power, Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) made an interesting case for it.
Davis’ rationale? Since the commutation allows Libby continued appeals to contest his conviction, he would assert his Fifth Amendment rights in the event that Congress calls him to testify about the Plame leak.
“If a pardon had been granted this committee could have immunized him and brought him here,” Davis said.
In this video, Davis runs his point by sentencing expert Prof. Douglas A. Berman of the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.