It was President Bush’s last full day in office.

Monday.

Last chance for Bush to pardon former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean who were serving decade-long sentences for shooting drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila.

Nearly a week before, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and several of his fellow congressmen held a news conference on the Hill pleading with Bush to free the agents, who faced all those years in solitary confinement, doing more time for a shooting and cover-up than some killers do for murder. At first the cause drew the sympathies of pro-law enforcement conservatives on the Hill. Then, ironically, some liberal congressmen joined the crusade because they objected to the mandatory minimum sentencing laws that ensured the agents’ long prison terms.

But on that Monday for active boosters like Rohrabacher and his press secretary Tara Setmayer all they could cling to was hope. Time was running out.

Setmayer, who brought the cause to Rohrabacher’s attention during just her first week on the job two-and-a-half years ago, had visited Ramos several times in prison and had even laboriously chronicled his brutal treatment in prison. She took calls from him in prison, always encouraging him to stay strong. She even fought prison officials to make sure he had the right medicine for his OCD and Tourettes.

So, while on break in Florida with family, she was in touch with Ramos’ wife, Monica, that morning.

“She sent me a text message. She was going crazy with anticipation,” Setmayer said. “I called her back and reassured her not to fret. If it doesn’t happen today the fight goes on.”

It’s been like that over the past two years. Stay strong. The battle will continue. It gets harder to say that, but…

Then, just as Monica Ramos and Patty Compean were about to go on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox, Monica texted Setmayer again. “Please call me.”

An ABC news reporter had called Monica’s attorney. “Would Monica be available in case a pardon happens today?”

“I thought, hmmm, ABC hasn’t covered this before so that’s a good thing,” Setmayer said. Setmayer called the Ramos’ lawyer and was told there were rumors, that’s all.

Setmayer called the office. “Anyone call for me?” Yes, Fox News left a message.

“Now I’m thinking there’s some credibility to this,” Setmayer said.

When she called back the reporter said, “We’re hearing some murmuring around here. No Scooter Libby, no Ted Stevens, but the border patrol agents might be.”

“My heart’s really pumping now.”

Forty-five minutes later. Another text from Monica. “I told her what I heard. And hang tight — guarded optimism.”

A few minutes later Setmayer gets a call from one of Lou Dobbs’ producers. It’s official. President Bush commuted the sentences of the agents.

“I just screamed and started crying, ‘Oh my God. Thank you, God. I can’t believe it.’ Our neighbors thought someone was dying… I just cried. I was so happy. I waited two-and-a-half years to hear that news.”

She called Monica first. Then the lawyer to confirm. Then Rohrabacher. He simply said, “Thank God.”

Setmayer talks to Ramos, or “Nacho” as she likes to call him, every other week. This time he called her. He got the news from the local radio news station, basically his only lifeline to the outside world aside from the prison guards and Setmayer.

“He fell on his knees and cried and thanked God,” Setmayer said. “The guards came over and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘I’ve been commuted.’ ”

When Setmayer talked to him, “I could hear him bouncing off the walls ready to go.”

They have plans to go to Disney World as soon as he’s released. The details of their release are still being worked out, but the hope is they can segue from a halfway house to freedom soon. It’s only a matter of weeks now.

Setmayer was told by a well-placed source that her documentation of the beat-down from inmates and other problems Ramos encountered in the Phoenix prison “played a significant role in the president’s decision.”

It’s no wonder she considers this “by far the greatest achievement of my adult life.”

Here’s a nice postscript to the story. Rohrabacher, who has unleashed the furies at Bush over this and other issues over the past couple of years, made sure to thank the president on Inauguration Day.

“When the president walked down the aisle up on the Capitol steps, the president walked up to Dana and he shook his hand, and Dana said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ ”

And if Bush hadn’t set the agents free?

“Dana has said maybe he wouldn’t have been as gracious,” Setmayer said.

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