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by the end of next week? this will be more important as there is a subpeona being issued on Thurs the 28th that could bring this to headline status....
Craig Crawford's Trail Mix: Add This to the Constitution — The Cheney Branch
By Craig Crawford, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY Published: June 22, 2007
So now we learn that for the past several years, Vice President Dick Cheney — while building his legacy as one of the most powerful figures ever to serve in that office — was actually claiming that he was not fully part of the Executive Branch.
This stunning revelation from a House committee yesterday produced a collective double-take all over Washington. Cheney’s claim of “non-executive privilege” was for the purpose of exempting himself from a presidential order regulating federal agencies’ handling of classified national security information.
But wait, this is the same VP who rushed to claim executive privilege whenever Congress tried to get information or documents that he refused to provide.
We still do not know where Cheney’s “undisclosed location” might be, but apparently he thinks it is above the law — and even beyond the reach of his own president’s executive orders.
i suspect the gray bar hotel will have more than just Libby in it before long...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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Do they think the laws just do not apply to them or what???? This seems criminal to attempt what he's doing.
Cheney Refuses Oversight of Classified Documents by Mike Leonard
WASHINGTON, June 21—In an open letter to Vice President Cheney, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today revealed that the vice president is seeking to close down a branch of the National Archives charged with oversight of executive branch secrecy, The New York Times reports.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Ca.) posted his letter on the committee’s website. The eight-page letter, accompanied by supporting documentation, described the vice president’s resistance to routine oversight of his office over the last four years. According to the letter, the vice president first refused the Information Security Oversight Office’s annual request for data regarding his staff’s document-classification procedures in 2003. The following year, Mr. Cheney’s office refused to allow regular on-site inspection of its records by the oversight office. Other executive branch agencies routinely submit to such inspections, whose purpose is simply to ensure that classified documents are properly labeled and stored.
The I.S.O.O. took issue with the vice president’s secrecy and has appealed the matter to the Justice Department, where it is now pending. The Justice Department has confirmed the authenticity of the letter’s allegations, according to The Times.
Executive Order 12958 assigns the National Archives to monitor documents classified by the executive branch. Mr. Cheney’s office has attempted to circumvent the oversight process by noting that the Constitution vests the vice president with legislative duties in addition to his executive role. The vice president is president of the Senate.
Rep. Waxman rejected that argument as pretext. “He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function,” which is minimal, Mr. Waxman said. The vice president presides over impeachment trials and casts tiebreaking votes.
The letter added that the vice president’s office has been responsible for several leaks of classified documents and “should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously.” Mr. Waxman was alluding in particular to the now-infamous disclosure of undercover C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame’s identity by several of Mr. Cheney’s top aides. I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney’s former chief of staff, was recently convicted of federal crimes relating to the leak and is scheduled to begin serving a 30-month prison sentence soon.
Administration critics have long held that Plame’s identity was revealed as retaliation against her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a retired diplomat who debunked Bush administration assertions that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. Strong circumstantial evidence, particularly the timing of the Plame leak, seem to support this interpretation.
That’s why when Mr. Cheney—who already has a reputation for vindictive retaliation and a demonstrated aversion to governmental transparency—requested that the I.S.O.O. be stripped of its right to appeal to the attorney general, Rep. Waxman raised the alarm. The vice president’s office has also reportedly suggested that the oversight unit be abolished altogether.
Of course, as the recent U.S. attorney scandal highlights, the Justice Department has become more politicized than ever under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and there is no guarantee that a censure will come of the allegations. “This matter is currently under review in the department,” said a Department of Justice spokesman.
The routine nature of the document review refused by the vice president’s office has led some observers to speculate that Mr. Cheney “doth protest too much” and may be stonewalling investigators. The vice president’s office complied with similar requests in 2001 and 2002 before first refusing to cooperate in 2003, the year the United States invaded Iraq.
Vice President Cheney has a history of extreme secrecy dating back to the earliest days of the administration, when he drew fire for refusing to reveal the names of the energy industry executives with whom he consulted in drafting a federal energy policy. He later refused to testify under oath before the 9/11 Commission.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
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Democrats Will Try To Cut Cheney Out Of Executive Funding (UPDATED) By Joe Gandelman
Since Vice President Dick Cheney is insisting his office isn’t part of the executive branch, the Democrats have decided to take legislative action to take away its executive branch funding.
And Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill) has also released a graphic that shows the “new” set up of the United States government with its newest self-declared branch. SEE EMANUEL’S GRAPHIC ABOVE.
As we said earlier, this story is not over yet:
Following Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the US government, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) plans to introduce an amendment to the the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill to cut funding for Cheney’s office.
The amendment to the bill that sets the funding for the executive branch will be considered next week in the House of Representatives.
“The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch,” said Emanuel in a statement released to RAW STORY. “However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments.”
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Medium | Larger | Largest IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
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