While I know Harriet would have made a fine justice, I didn’t think enough about how the selection would be perceived by others. I put my friend in an impossible situation. If I had it to do over again, I would not have thrown Harriet to the wolves of Washington.
The morning after the announcement, Harriet reported to work, just like on any other day. She went office to office in the West Wing, lifting the spirits of the many colleagues, junior and senior, who were saddened to see a person they admired treated so wrongly. When she came to the Oval Office, I said, “Thank goodness you withdrew. I still have a great lawyer.” She smiled and said, “Mr. President, I am ready to lead the search for your next nominee.”
I had to get the next pick right. While the idea of selecting a woman still appealed to me, I could not find any as qualified as Sam Alito. Sam is as reserved as they come. When we first sat down for the interview, he seemed ill at ease. I tried the old common-ground icebreaker—in this case, baseball. Sam is a huge Philadelphia Phillies fan. As we talked about the game, his body language changed. He opened up a little about his life and the law. He was scholarly, but practical. He had been a federal prosecutor in New Jersey before moving to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990. His opinions were well grounded and tightly argued. There was no doubt he would adhere strictly to the Constitution.
With Sam Alito. White House/Paul Morse
Four days after Harriet withdrew, I met with Sam in the Oval Office and offered him the job. He accepted. Our supporters were elated. Our critics knew they would not be able to block Sam’s confirmation, but they subjected him to a nasty hearing anyway. They tried to paint him as a racist, a radical, a bigot, anything they could think of—all based on zero evidence. I was disgusted by the demagoguery. As one senator recounted the false charges, Sam’s wife, Martha Ann, broke into tears. Her reaction was so genuine that even some Democrats realized they had gone too far.
After the Senate confirmed Sam to the Court, I invited him and his family to the White House for his swearing-in. Before we went out for the ceremony, I had a moment alone with Sam. I thanked him for enduring the hearings and wished him well on the Court. Then I said, “Sam, you ought to thank Harriet Miers for making this possible.” He replied, “Mr. President, you’re exactly right.”
The most emotional personnel decision I had to make was the last one of my presidency. The roots of my dilemma stretched back to the summer of 2003. Our troops in Iraq had not found the weapons of mass destruction we all expected, and the media’s scramble for a scapegoat had commenced. In my 2003 State of the Union address, I had cited a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. The single sentence in my five-thousand-word speech was not a major point in the case against Saddam. The British stood by the intelligence.*** Yet those sixteen words became a political controversy and a massive distraction.
In July 2003, former ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote a New York Times column alleging that the administration had ignored his skeptical findings when he traveled to Africa to investigate the Iraq-Niger connection. There were serious questions about the accuracy and thoroughness of Wilson’s report, but his charge became a prime talking point for critics of the war. Shortly after Wilson’s op-ed, longtime Washington columnist Bob Novak reported that Wilson had been sent to Niger not by Dick Cheney or any senior member of the administration, as Wilson had suggested, but on the recommendation of his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked at the CIA.
Then it came out that Wilson’s wife’s position was classified. Critics alleged that someone in my administration had committed a crime by intentionally leaking the identity of a CIA operative. The Justice Department named a special prosecutor to investigate.
I was inherently skeptical of special prosecutors. I remembered how Lawrence Walsh had politicized his investigation of Iran-Contra during the 1992 campaign. But an intelligence leak was a serious matter, and I directed my staff to cooperate fully. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed most of the team, including me. Early in the process, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage informed Fitzgerald that he had provided Novak with the information about Plame. Nevertheless, the special prosecutor continued to investigate.
Over the course of more than two years, Fitzgerald brought numerous administration officials before a grand jury, including Dick’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby. After two appearances by Scooter, Fitzgerald produced an indictment for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Scooter went to trial and was convicted. In June 2007 he was sentenced to thirty months in prison.
I faced an agonizing decision. I could let Scooter go to jail. I could use my power under the Constitution to grant him a pardon. Or I could commute his sentence, meaning his conviction would stand but his prison sentence would not. Some in the White House, led by the vice president, pushed aggressively for a pardon. Their argument was that the investigation should never have proceeded after Fitzgerald had identified Novak’s source. On the other hand, most advisers believed that the jury verdict was correct and should remain in place.
I decided it would send a bad message to pardon a former staff member convicted of obstructing justice, especially after I had instructed the staff to cooperate with the investigation. But the punishment Scooter had received did not fit the crime. The protracted investigation and trial had already caused personal, professional, and financial damage for Scooter and his family. In early July 2007, I announced my decision: “I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”
The reaction from the left was blistering. “President Bush’s action today tells America that it’s okay to lie, mislead, and obstruct justice, as long as you are loyal to his administration,” one congressman said. Another said, “I call on House Democrats to reconsider impeachment proceedings.” Not everyone in the White House liked the decision, either. Dick continued to advocate a full pardon.
One of the biggest surprises of my presidency was the flood of pardon requests at the end. I could not believe the number of people who pulled me aside to suggest that a friend or former colleague deserved a pardon. At first I was frustrated. Then I was disgusted. I came to see massive injustice in the system. If you had connections to the president, you could insert your case into the last-minute frenzy. Otherwise, you had to wait for the Justice Department to conduct a review and make a recommendation. In my final weeks in office, I resolved that I would not pardon anyone who went outside the formal channels.
In the closing days of the administration, Dick pressed his case that Scooter should be pardoned. Scooter was a decent man and dedicated public servant, and I understood the ramifications for his family. I asked two trusted lawyers to review the case from top to bottom, including the evidence presented at the trial for and against Scooter. I also authorized them to meet with Scooter to hear his side of the story. After careful analysis, both lawyers told me they could find no justification for overturning the jury’s verdict.
I spent our last weekend at Camp David wrestling with the decision. “Just make up your mind,” Laura told me. “You’re ruining this for everyone.” Ultimately, I reached the same conclusion I had in 2007: The jury verdict should be respected. In one of our final meetings, I informed Dick that I would not issue a pardon. He stared at me with an intense look. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” he said. The comment stung. In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this. I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.