'No comment' on border agents, Snow says

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow

Former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby is free from serving any part of a prison sentence on a conviction for lying about the Valerie Plame CIA case, while two U.S. Border Patrol agents remain in solitary for shooting at an escaping drug smuggler. And White House spokesman Tony Snow says that's the end of the conversation.

Snow was responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, about the issue. President Bush commuted Libby's prison term on his conviction for lying, meaning he will not serve a day of the sentence.

However, there has been no response from the White House to the protests, including a coalition of several hundred members of Congress, seeking a pardon for Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

They were given terms of 11 and 12 years on their convictions for their encounter with a drug smuggler, who left behind hundreds of pounds of drugs and fled back into Mexico.

The smuggler later was given immunity and returned to the United States to testify against the agents.

"The president's fellow Republican and presidential candidate, Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, said if the president of the United States is going to commute the sentence of Scooter Libby, he should immediately accompany that with a pardon for Border Patrol Agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos. And my question: Since there are hundreds of sponsors of a bill to this effect, these two agents are in solitary. Why won't the president show the same mercy to them that he showed to Libby," Kinsolving asked.

"We do not discuss any of those matters, whether they're under consideration or not, and you know it," a terse Snow said.

"I've heard to you discuss them," Kinsolving said.

"No, you didn't."

Actually, Snow has defended the president's position, including during an interview with WND when he said that border agents must obey the law, too.

He suggested then that those who are seeking clemency for the agents should review the evidence in the case.

"They (agents Jose Alonso Compean, 28, and Ignacio Ramos, 37) eventually went before a … jury – and were convicted on 11 of 12 counts, by a U.S. attorney who has prosecuted any number of cases. But the facts of this case are such that I would invite everybody to take a full look at the documented record," Snow told WND.

"This is not the case of the United States saying, we are not going to support people who go after drug dealers. Of course we are. We think it's incumbent to go after drug dealers, and we also think that it's vitally important to make sure that we provide border security so our people are secure," Snow continued.

"We also believe that the people who are working to secure that border themselves obey the law. And in a court of law, these two agents were convicted on 11 of 12 counts by a jury of their peers after a lengthy trial at which they did have the opportunity to make their case," he said.

Snow did confirm he couldn't comment about the specifics of pardons.

But he said according to evidence in the court case, there was "an incident in which there was an attempt to pull somebody over. He finally got pulled over; somebody holds out a gun. Sort of scuffling ensues. And what happens is you've got a fellow running away, and a couple of agents eventually in pursuit, firing 14 shots at him – I think 15, actually. Fourteen by one agent missed, one did strike him in the fleshy hindquarters."

"They also have rights of appeal. So I don't want to be acting here as – I'm not going to be judge and jury, but I do think that there's been a characterization that somehow the government is turning a blind eye toward the law in enforcing the law. And … I think that's the important thing. So take a look at the facts of the case," Snow said.

Snow followed up after the press briefing by faxing 12 pages of comment about the case of the border guards, including an argument by the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, on his own behalf, as well as a guest column Sutton wrote for the El Paso Times in October.

"Agents Compean and Ramos were not railroaded by some over-zealous prosecutor, they were unanimously found guilty by a jury in a United States federal district court after a trial that lasted more than 2 ? weeks," Sutton wrote in the newspaper. "The problem for Mr. Compean and Mr. Ramos is that the jury did not believe their stories because they were not true."

Snow also faxed a six-page analysis of the case, with a list of unsigned myth-fact comparison statements.

Just days ago, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., pointing to the presidential commutation of the prison sentence for Libby, called again on Bush to pardon Ramos and Compean.

And Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is launching a Senate judiciary committee hearing examining the prosecution of Ramos and Compean.

As WND reported, Feinstein believes the agents' 11- and 12-year sentences for their actions in the shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler were excessive.

"I strongly believe that the sentences in this case are too extreme, given the criminal nature of the defendant and his possession of large quantities of drugs," Feinstein said in a statement earlier this year. "These men were given sentences that some individuals who are convicted of murder wouldn't receive."

The smuggler in the case, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, was caught in another drug delivery, but jurors were not allowed to have access to that information. Defense lawyers said that information was needed to impeach the smuggler's testimony about his involvement in the first delivery.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., also is asking a House committee also to examine the case. The congressman wants to look at the involvement of the Mexican government in the decision to prosecute the agents and Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez. Sutton also prosecuted Hernandez, who was convicted of violating the civil rights of two illegal aliens injured from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. The van driver had tried to run over Hernandez.

In the Plame case, prosecutors began looking at actions involving several officials connected to the White House after Plame's identity and occupation as a CIA agent were revealed to a reporter. No one was convicted of revealing those facts, but Libby was convicted of lying about the circumstances of the case.

In another question, Kinsolving asked about Bush's reaction to a high support a poll revealed for Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Bush's approval ratings have been in the low 30 or upper 20 percents, while those for Congress have been even lower.

"Washington's Weekly Standard reports from Juneau, Alaska, that the new Republican governor, Sarah Palin, has an approval rating of 90 percent in the polls – that's nine-zero. And what is the president's reaction to this and her future?"

"He's very happy for her," Snow said.