BUSH COMMUTES PRISON TERMS FOR 2 BORDER GUARDS

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush commuted the prison terms of
two former Border Patrol agents who became a conservative cause
celebre after being convicted in the 2005 shooting of an unarmed,
suspected drug smuggler. The White House said Monday that Mr. Bush,
who leaves office Tuesday, would not be issuing any more grants of
clemency. That means there will be no last-minute pardon for Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.
Mr. Bush had commuted Mr. Libby's 30-month sentence after he was
convicted of perjury in 2007 in a case involving the leaking of the
identity of intelligence agent Valerie Plame.

Nor will there be pardons for several business executives and members
of Congress who are serving, or face, prison time.

The two Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were
serving 12- and 11-year sentences, respectively, for shooting Mexican
Osvaldo Aldrete Davila as he was fleeing from the vicinity of an
abandoned van containing about 700 pounds of marijuana, along the Rio
Grande border near El Paso, Tex. The agents later said they thought
they saw something shiny in Mr. Davila's hand, leading them to think
he was armed. They said they fired in self-defense.

A federal court in Texas convicted them of assault, civil rights
violations and other charges. Most of the charges were upheld on
appeal. The victim survived and is suing the U.S. government.

With tensions rising across the country over illegal immigration, the
agents' case became a rallying cry for many members of Congress,
including some Democrats, as well as conservative talk radio hosts,
anti-immigration forces and some law enforcement groups. Supporters of
the agents argued that they were doing their jobs, or at least, were
punished too harshly. The White House had given few indications that
it was considering acting on the case. Andy Ramirez, chairman of
Friends of the Border Patrol and a leading advocate for the agents,
said on Monday that he was surprised by Mr. Bush's commutations. "As
long as I've worked on this case, I couldn't have seen this coming,"
he said. He said he believes Mr. Bush made the 11th-hour decision on
political grounds, throwing a bone to anti-immigration sympathizers
after having aligned himself with pro-immigration forces during most
of his presidency.

In recent interviews, Mr. Bush has said one of his biggest regrets is
not accomplishing more on immigration after his 2004 reelection.
Instead, he decided to make Social Security reform his top priority,
but accomplished little on that front or in later efforts to overhaul
the country's immigration system by creating a temporary guest-worker
program. Mr. Bush recently has said the Republican Party must become
more "inclusive" to remain competitive with Democrats.

A senior administration official Monday said the president didn't
issue a full pardon for Messrs. Compean and Ramos, because he felt
that they received a fair trial and just verdicts. But he commuted
their sentences because he thought their terms were too long and that
they had suffered enough. The agents are expected to be released soon.
The president issued the clemencies without a recommendation from the
Justice Department, which was still processing the requests for
clemency filed by the men's lawyers. "The president always retains the
plenary power granted to him by the Constitution to grant clemency,
and does so at his sole discretion," a department spokeswoman said.

The Justice Department has long defended its prosecution of the case.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who had prosecuted the case, told a
Senate Judiciary Committee panel last year that the case "was not
about illegal immigration, illegal drug smuggling, or supporting
agents who patrol the border. It was about upholding the law, plain
and simple, a duty which our nation's federal prosecutors take very
seriously.