Libby Pardon Mania

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It’s all anyone is talking about. Will Bush pardon Libby? The Dems are urging the president not to. Libby allies are pushing hard and fast for an immediate pardon. Bush has said he will stay out of it for now.

Jonathan points out we should really move “past Libby and take a look at all the other players (Read: Cheney) in this sordid drama.” I couldn’t agree more, but there is one interesting question which Newsweek posed a few days back. Can Bush pardon Libby even if he wanted to? According to Newsweek, he can’t. The VP’s chief of staff “does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines,” reads the article. Here are the guidelines.

Well, so this isn’t exactly true, because not all presidents follow these guidelines. But Bush has, so it could make the prospect for a pardon from him unlikely. Bush has been both stringent with the number of pardons that he has granted as well as with the manner in which he has granted them. One guideline that could impede Libby’s pardon prospects is that a petitioner must wait five years or until released from confinement to file a pardon application. There is also the issue of acceptance of guilt, which according to Jonathan Turley, a GW law prof. I contacted for more information on this issue, is a “threshold expectation among pardon attorneys.”

But really, I wonder if any of this matters. With pressure from Cheney and Libby allies, will Bush uphold his frugal pardon track record? Maybe not. According to Turley, if Bush pardons Libby, the controversy would indeed be escalated considering his refusal to pardon so many others, but he notes that Bush has one thing going for him — low ratings. “It is hard to get any lower,” says Turley. “He is down to the true believers and Koolaid drinkers at this point.” Maybe Libby will get lucky.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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