President Bush last night spared Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, from serving a 30-month prison sentence imposed on him for lying to a CIA leak investigation.

The decision came after a federal court ruled that Libby could not delay his jail term until an appeal was heard, thereby piling on the pressure for Mr Bush, who had sidestepped calls from conservative allies to pardon him.

The White House would have preferred to wait until after the 2008 election before making any decision, but this week’s court ruling forced Mr Bush’s hand. In a statement issued from his family’s holiday home in Kennebunkport, Maine, he said: “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 President said that he was not pardoning the man who was until recently Mr Cheney’s closest aide, and that Libby still faced the “harsh punishment” of a $250,000 (£125,000) fine and two years of probation.

“The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged,” said Mr Bush. “His wife and young children have also suffered immensely . . . The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.”

The decision was seized upon by the Democrats who saw Libby’s 11th hour rescue as the latest chapter in a scandal that began in the build-up to the Iraq War. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid described it as “disgraceful” adding: “Libby’s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics. ”

Although the US Bureau of Prisons has not yet assigned Libby a prison or given him a date to surrender, he had been designated as federal inmate No 28301-016. He was the highest-ranking US official to be sentenced since the Iran Contra affair 20 years ago. Mr Libby was convicted of obstructing an inquiry into how the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, came to be leaked – even though he was not responsible for the disclosure.

Ms Plame’s name became public in a column by Robert Novak, a journalist, on July 14, 2003 shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had openly questioned the veracity of the Bush Administration’s case for invading Iraq. Disclosure of her identity was widely seen as an act of revenge at an acutely sensitive time during the early stages of the war.

Before his sentencing this month, Mr Libby’s allies wrote dozens of letters asking the judge to show mercy on a man seen in neo-conservative cicles as a martyr. His supporters included Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defence Secretary, John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations and Paul Wolfowitz, the outgoing President of the World Bank – all of whom feel they have been similarly victimised by a liberal media.

A legal defence fund set up by neo-conservative groups is thought to have raised more than enough to pay Libby’s fine. Mr Bush said: “This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr Libby was a first-time offender with years of public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.”

Perjury conviction

March 2007

Libby convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI investigators in connection with the unmasking of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent

June 2007

He was sentenced to 2½ years in prison and fined $250,000. He was also sentenced to two years of probation

Source: Times archive

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