In regards to the possibility of a pardon, Tony Snow said yesterday (via the NYT:

“As we pointed out before, there is a process, you know, and it’s available to anybody who has been convicted in the United States,” Mr. Snow said.

Technically the statement is correct: anyone can petition for a pardon.

However, to act as if Libby, a former high-level official in the White House whose conviction was in the context of work he was doing in the White House, has exactly the same access to a potential pardon as “anybody who has been convicted in the United States” is laughable on its face.

In regards to the potential for a pardon, clearly the President will let the process follow its course before acting. That he is likely to pardon Libby, assuming the convictions stand, in clear given the value he personally places on loyalty.

The fact that a pardon was a possibility clearly wasn’t lost on at least one juror (Via MSNBC, Juror calls on Bush to pardon Libby):

Saying “I don’t want him to go to jail,” a member of the jury that convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case called Wednesday for President Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The woman, Ann Redington, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that she cried when the verdicts against Libby were read Tuesday. She said Libby seemed to be “a really nice guy.”

[...]

“I would like him to get” a pardon from Bush, Redington said. “It kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed.”

One wonders as to whether the potential for a pardon figured into any of the deliberations (either overtly or covertly) in this process. If Libby wasn’t someone likely to receive a pardon, would the verdict have been different? I don’t know, but it does introduce a twist to the process.