Ex-White House aide Scooter Libby drops appeal

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A former top White House aide partially pardoned after being served a jail term for obstructing a probe into the outing of a CIA agent has dropped his appeal in the case, lawyers said Monday.

In July President George W. Bush pardoned Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, sparing him from a two-and-a-half-year jail term.

But Bush said a 250,000 dollar fine and a two-year probation still stood after Libby was convicted in March of perjury and lying to FBI investigators.

"We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," Libby's lawyer Theodore Wells said in a statement Monday.

"However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending...