WASHINGTON _ Rattled by President Donald Trump's decision to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Rep. Adam Schiff wants Congress to pass legislation giving itself more oversight of the president's pardoning power.
The proposal would allow Congress to view evidence against someone who receives a presidential pardon when that person is connected to an investigation involving the president or a member of the president's family.
"I think it will have an important deterrent impact, as well as inform the Congress if circumstances arise in which the president uses the pardon power for an illicit purpose, to protect himself, to obstruct justice," said Schiff, D-Calif., in an interview.
Schiff is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a leading figure in Congress' investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to federal investigators and obstruction of justice in a probe into the leaking of a CIA officers' identity. Trump said he issued the pardon because Libby was "treated unfairly" by a special counsel. The president whom Libby served, George W. Bush, stopped short of pardoning Libby, as Cheney wanted, and agreed only to commute his sentence.
Libby's pardon, Trump's third, was the second to be highly controversial, following his pardon in August of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who was convicted of criminal contempt of court. Yet legislation of the sort that Schiff proposes likely faces long odds, both because Republicans control Congress and because the Constitution gives presidents broad power to pardon.
