“Protecting” President Cheney, Too
In today’s second installment on ways American taxpayers are wasting money to protect Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Josh Gerstein has a report on today’s hearing on CREW’s FOIA of Cheney’s interview in the CIA Leak Case. And DOJ is unabashedly making the argument that it should not release Dick Cheney’s interview because it might embarrrass him. (h/t MadDog)
Smith said the Justice Department’s view was that a delay of five to ten years was appropriate, marked from the time the official or his or her administration left office. “It’s a judgment call,” Smith acknowledged.
Smith suggested that such a delay would make it more likely that the information was used for historical purposes and not for political embarrassment. “The distinction is between releasing it for historical view and releasing it into the political fray,” Smith said.
Funny, DOJ claimed it was arguing for the longer-than-statutes-of-limitation delay because of concerns that future Vice Presidents wouldn’t cooperate willingly with investigations. As time goes on an their arguments look shittier and shittier, I guess, they become more and more truthful. Thus their invention of a new FOIA embarrassment exemption.
It sounds like Emmet Sullivan is not buying that argument–though he is also unwilling to just order the release of the interview without giving Obama’s DOJ an opportunity to waste more money protecting Cheney from embarrassment.
As the hearing concluded, Sullivan said he thought Congress had drawn a “bright line” with language in the Freedom of Information Act that generally exempts information about pending investigations from disclosure, but not closed probes, like the CIA leak case. He also said he would stay any ruling so the government could appeal before he released any documents.
President Obama? Attorney General Holder? This nonsense has gone on long enough. As I noted, Cheney’s participation in this probe is proof enough that the investigative concerns are bunk. It really is high time to stop wasting money preventing taxpayers from learning what Cheney did in our name.
here’s what I really don’t getl
cheney has made a point of attacking obama in the worst possible method that a president can be attacked, going on national tee vee and saying obama is going to cause another attack
it really makes no sense that obama is protecting this maggot
Here’s my hope: the government will not appeal. Giving Cheney extended protection is in exchange for the problems that might arise for him when the interview is released.
I’m still keeping my bet with bmaz that AG Holder will fold and not appeal.
I’m with you, subject to revision. But I suspect you’re right. This really isn’t worth their time, and it’s not like the folks in DC are all that interested in doing favors for Cheney on this. They denied Libby’s appeal; I would hope they’d deny any appeal here.
What’s the ante suckers?
The alcoholic beverage of your choice (no, Chateau Lafitte 1875 ain’t in the pot *g*).
The tinfoil hat theory would be that the DOJ is deliberately throwing the case by using the worst arguments they can think of, and as a result, the DOJ gets a precedent-setting ruling (including appeals all the way to SCOTUS) that all such future non-Grand Jury interviews are public domain.
I can’t see this being the likely move on the part of Obama’s DOJ just because they can’t know it won’t come back to bite them or future Administrations.
That said, these are still pretty dumb arguments.
I agree that’s a tinfoil view.
I don’t think they’re throwing shit–aside from what Mukasey left for them. That said, the only reason I would think they’d go forward is if the interview really ahd evidence of obstruction–either Cheney’s, Bush’s, or Mukasey’s. I still need to do my post on that (better get with it if I want to raise bmaz a hubcap), but thus far I just don’t see it.
The argument is crappy bc there is no real argument to be made. So I’m just trying to figure out WTF they’re doing it.
And another tinfoil hat theory is that Cheney really blamed it all on Scooter, and that if Scooter ever finds out about it, he’s gonna spill all of the beans!
As we say in technoworld, it doesn’t compute!
I hate going agin a fellow Northerner, esp in a bet Vs a Sun Devil but I think Holder will follow through, even if he does so unwillingly. I don’t think Feingold, Durbin, Whitehouse & Co. are going to stand for anything else.
I’m tossing in Belgian Ale or Cafferty’s Draught in the Pot but y’all have to come to Toronto to collect, if’n you win …
You don’t think it is simply that there is no political downside to them being forced by the court to release the documents should they lose, whereas if they did so voluntarily they would be lacerated for playing politics (by the usual suspects). And if they win, they’ve successfully expanded executive power
I think you get it right about the politics, anatomist, but I have too much respect for Obama & Co.’s common sense to believe that they want to, or expect to, “win”–whatever that might amount to in this context.
DOJ’s argument is wrong by 180 degrees. The government should be embarrassed more often, not less often. Embarrassment is one of the main tools the people have, between elections, to keep their government in line.
Bob in HI
“too” or “two”?
Bob in HI
“Too” was intentional. I felt stupid enough using the same title for two posts in a row, so I just tried to be insufferably cute.
But watch out tomatillo…
Isn’t that: watch out LITTLE tomatillo?
Time to press on the pedal.
Let’s move the DOJ out of the Executive Branch and into a “seperate independent organization”
Either that or delete the “J”.
That typo has been around for some time. It’s the Dept. of Just Us. (You say tomatillo,…)
Just Ice. That’s what we used to call it, anyway.
Hmmm. I tried calling for that once. It didn’t get anywhere…
Meh, I just want alcohol and a mixer around my ice.
If Mr. Big Dick fell on his arse because he was shouting at the TeeVee, Republicans would claim it’s a AQ assault. The terms of their public debate have become that unhinged.
Mr. Cheney is not entitled to lifetime protection. His own resources are more than adequate to employ the half dozen or dozen Blackwater or ex-SAS guards he needs. When the government he led left debts so mountainous, it has to cut somewhere.
How many former Senate Presidents get USSS protection? Wouldn’t a post-Senate gig be the Capitol Police’s bailywick? I thought Mr. Cheney was not part of the Executive Branch.
bmaz@10
whatever the ante action is I will cover EW’s bet , and double down on that action with you bmaz’er ,,,my money is still riding on Team Obama /AG Holder …
Well if the VP weren’t part of the executive branch, he wouldn’t be getting executive-branch protection.
If he really was part of the legislative branch, he wouldn’t be getting that level of protection.
If he’s in the barnacle branch, he should pay for his own protection, since that branch isn’t in the constitution.
So, which one is it , Darth?
Wow, this is ripe for a classic delta/plus analysis of each theory.
Like this:
What looks most likely? What other theories more fleshed out do we have?
I would argue that the more likely scenario is they are just playing out the string on a lot of this for the sake of continuity and because they believe in the privileges and immunities and want to make sure they are there for them when they leave. It is all political and has nothing to do with the law or chess.
Even assuming these guys are maximalists regarding executive branch protections, isn’t there a weighing of how shitty-ass your case is before you appeal something and create precedent?
I’ve mentioned the HJC investigation into the USA firings before, which I think is the closest parallel to this: embarrassing information, a claim to executive privilege, no potential demand for Obama to investigate. GregCraig chose there not to pursue a dog of a case to the Appeals Court.
That’s the logic behind my siding with MD. I’m scratching my head to imagine why, otherwise, they’d fight this further. But in the absence of discovering something like that (and I do think obstruction charges against Mukasey, Bush, or Cheney are the most likley risk here), then there’s no reason to have Appeals weigh in on this shitty a case.
isn’t there a weighing of how shitty-ass your case is before you appeal something and create precedent
Not so much (and see 33).
Realistically, they’ll hold all the cards and any precedent would be incredibly narrow anyway.
If they appeal, they get the additional “delay” they say they have to have anyway – for some period of time at least and depending on the appeals calendar, that could be a fair amount of time.
At any time in the appeals process they can either drop the appeal (and not have a Cir Ct precedent on the books against them) or cut a deal with plaintiffs tot eh same effect.
Even if they get a cir ct appeal on the record against them, they will completely control the confidentiality issue vis a vis future interviewees and the precedent won’t be applicable where there is a confidentiality agreement.
I can’t see why they wouldn’t appeal, and that’s even if I thought they were on the up and up (which I don’t, but still).
And I’m still thinking that Cheney muddies it all by making third party aspersions in his interview.
Fair enough.
What do you mean by third party aspersions?
‘The tooth fairy made me do it’?
Oh lookee, while I was slow typing, Fast Fingers Mary sped through with some of the same thoughts. I adopt and incorporate those as if set forth again herein.
I do wonder what kind of “deal” could be cut though. I thought about that. What, they will release the crap we already have? They will release it in two years instead of six? I don’t see it….
You would think so, but I have yet to see that out of this bunch. Granted, I had forgotten your example. It is a good one. Of course after a berating by Vaughn Walker, similar to what Sullivan appears to be administering, Obama/Holder still tried their silly ass appeal to the 9th. So there is that as somewhat of a counterbalance.
Your example does give me pause because it is closer to the core privilege issue. But there was a compromise in the offing there; here there is not. Also I feel they really do not want to open up the Cheney can of worms, and especially not during their big healthcare push. If Sullivan rules quickly, they could appeal just for delay in that regard.
I’ll stick with my bet.
But the outcome would be the same in any case. That is, unlike the HJC case, where inaction on GC’s part would have ended up with HJC trying to enforce subpoenas, Karl still refusing, and DOJ being forced to either enforce those subpoenas or not, here, all they have to do is release a document that I don’t expect to be all that surprising in any case.
Al-H and Jeppesen are different, bc they go to the core of state secrets (an issue that they’re trying to back Congress into a corner on so they can also play the heavy hand on negotiations). That is, they’re trying to force the issue of state secrets such that Leahy and Nadler will negotiate and push through DOJ’s preferred legislation amending state secrets (though I think the Horn case may overtake that dance).
But in the Cheney case, the path of least resisitence, with no real downside (assuming the interview is as boring as I still think it is, though it’ll shock the DC idiots who have thought I was crazy all these years) is to release the interview (though since they’re not paying for the legal fees, yuo and I are, Mary’s point stands).
Wait, do I detect the primordial signs of that “revision” you mentioned?
How about this? Within maybe a few limits — such as not adding in any new batshit crazy/intellectually dishonest/fraudulent [pick one out/make one up] rationale to the ones already being advanced on behalf of Present Codpiece, leave those few hundred [couldn’t be more than a few thousand at worse] remaining embeds in charge of continuing to attend the Bush fires they’ve been attending probably from way back to when they set them [They gotta be like that crew of fire fighters in Steve Martin’s Roxanne], leaving them to think, hey, if you can win this, we’ll be so impressed we’ll consider giving you something else to do; but if you lose it, well, we just might start looking at job performance ratings, and since you all have been on like the same file for years now and couldn’t even bring that one home …
so you effectively identify the loyalest of the Bushites, and the incompetents, and the group with the highest incident of unacceptable practice ethics, and you conflate those in an administratively useful/bureaucratically defensible way, and VOILA: Reverse Cheneyism!
It’s gotta be a better theory than eleventy-twelve dimensional chess.
Yep. Rahm is betting that like Cheney, he’ll be president some day and he wants every power he can beg, borrow or steal.
And right on topic, from The Blog of Legal Times comes more reporting on today’s hearing:
Sullivan has sense of humour. Good sense of humour. Good sign.
Reminds me of this story … A new missionary sneaks away for a quiet walk in the Jungle, anxious to catch a peek of wildlife even though he was warned against doing so. After a little while, he hears a rustle in the bushes ahead and a large Lion appears.
The missionary gulped, fearing the worst, when suddenly, the Lion kicks a Football to him. Startled, the missionary kicks the Football back and this continues for a few minutes when suddenly a Lioness appears out of the same bushes and shouts, “Junior, how many times have I told you not to play with your food !”
Moral: When the Judge toys with you, you’re toast !
Pretty good, but … jokes that involve a fantastic premise, such as talking beasts, can be vulnerable to failing if any of their others premises overstretch credulity; and the implication that this Lion was able to field punt, and particularly when the Lion was then able to succeed in kicking it back again, all without it being blocked or missing the ball and falling on his keester and tearing a hammie and going on the DL for an indefinite period … all that has to work against an awful big pile of steaming evidence [as fearless leader might put it].
Or we could be talking about Europeeen Football …
Sully has a bite to his sarcasm
Jon Stewart will be all over this one…let’s hope.
so the defense is that the Cheney interview might end up on the Daily show or that it might “embarrass” him. Pathetic
Perhaps a future investigation will be hampered, but perhaps releasing Cheney’s interview would head-off future crimes thereby preventing a need for future investigations altogether.
Ah. Here’s a theory: Deadeye revealed himself to be absolutely and totally batshit-looney during his interview, a real delusional paranoid.
They’re hanging on to it because it’s an embarrassment to us that we would let this freak hold the office of VP as long as we did.
They figure he’s looney enough that he’ll lose his grip altogether within 5 years or less and then the paranoia will be so obvious they can reveal how exposed and at risk we were while not having to explain in any detail.
Daffy Dick?
Maybe we’re dealing with a “Moveable Feast”
Everything will come together at the proper time, so we can “Feast
on Cheney”, and the injustice he wrought…
Whatever happened to that “what goes around” theory?
Ivan Eland: Making Sense of Cheney’s Madness
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/072009b.html
There was always an element of mad excess to the Bush administration’s assertions of its unlimited powers, a hubris that invited resistance but prevailed because of the collective cowardice of the Washington press corps and Congress.
The Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland suggests there was a method to the apparent madness, that Dick Cheney developed a post-9/11 strategy to exploit the crisis to achieve long-held goals for a unitary executive and a hyper-imperial presidency.
Post hoc ergo ante hoc? Except ‘ante’ gets you into tinfoil territory and we don’t go there. (Although it looks awfully darned inviting at times!)
it’s not anti hoc, he’s had these aspirations since nixon and set in motion a series of lies to undermine nixon’s treaty of detante, “team b”, the same team that created the false data that got us into Iraq
This is news?
Hello? Is Ivan Eland the new name for Rumpelstiltskin?
Bob in HI
John Nichols: Cheney, High-Level Wrongdoing Must Be Focus of Inquiries
http://www.thenation.com/blogs….._inquiries
Maybe if the DOJ would list and explain all of the investigations they expect to be pending soon, then Sullivan would take their side. /snark
And btw, for Mary, here’s your earlier Lamberth decision.
That’s the one!
And there’s this from the article:
IMO, he probably in Nov of 08 also thought it likely that Obama would come in and clean house and that, without making a lot of precedent and having a knock down, drag out with the CIA, what should come out would come out. But now you have the DOJ fibs in the habeas cases thet he is coordinating and this CIA case and he’s not so deferential.
Not sure you saw my comment earlier, but the hearing transcript bmaz linked to in his post is pretty much Lamberth going, “I’ve got all this Gitmo stuff to weigh down and here you are lying to me?”
I missed totally that bmaz pulled up an actual hearing transcript too. Thanks and thanks bmaz.
heh
“And DOJ is unabashedly making the argument that it should not release Dick Cheney’s interview because it might embarrrass him.”
Embarrass…embarrass! Do these folks give a damn that the American public has absolutely no faith in our justice system or in congress? …. and for good reason.
Unnecessary and immoral war based on piles of false WMD intelligence, no one held accountable for that false intelligence, Cheney and the team who outed Plame running free, Rove ignoring subpoenas.
It’s more than roads and our infrastructure that are crumbling.
Back to Fitz’s mission and what it was to investigate. The interview would explain why he could not bring any charges for violations of IIPA or other laws because Cheney had assumed executive powers of declassification. That he chose to out an agent to discredit a critic would be embarrassing. If he kept Bush in the dark about it, that too, would be embarrassing. Why would these DOJ lawyers embarrass themselves by making these ridiculous arguments? Only to avoid the wingnuts from making a big deal out of handing over material to deliberately embarrass Bush/Cheney/Libby. Fitz would not have agreed to release them if there were anything else to investigate or any law enforcement interests or any other legitimate argument.
I thought at the end of that trial Fitz hit the ball into Congress’s court? That the next move was theirs?
Just really do not get why our so called justice system would give a rats ass about “embarrassing” Cheney or anyone else in the Bush administration who was part of the team who outed Plame/Wilson. If the truth, if justice, if National Security is at the top of their priority list. One would think holding those responsible for outing Valerie (put her life on the line for the national security of her country) would be their number one priority.
What a message for other under cover agents. You are dispensable and we are not concerned about your safety especially when it comes to the Bush administration purposely outing you. Now that has had to hurt U.S. National Security
Third party aspersions = my spec on Cheney’s interview, especially coupled with the language in the briefing about providing hunches and insights etc., is that his response to the investigation was to sic Fitzgerald on someone other than his boy. I wouldn’t be surprised if, for example, he mentioned Rove – someone he knew Bush would absolutely defend – to make sure that the stakes of his boy taking a dive were too high for Bush to let it happen. If he said something like, “Bush authorized us here at OVP to leak the NIE info but if somone blew Plame’s cover to Novak, it was probably someone like Karl, because I know he was having meeting/discussions with Novak at about that time …”
Or he could have just sic’ed him on Armitage, but I think he was sending him other places, not into OVP deeper.
But let’s say Cheney surmises and speculates, or more, with Fitzgerald about Rove. And that comes out now, when Fitzgerald has closed his doors, Rove has a FOX gig, and Rove was never charged. Here’s some of the issues you’d face.
One is that you would have someone who was not charged and yet is going to get plastered in the papers with damning statements from the VP of the US. I have to say – I normally wouldn’t approve. Even with Rove, I wouldn’t approve although it hurts me to say it. That’s just not a valid purpose of a criminal investigation – to pepper the news with what may be ungrounded and unfounded spec from a biased source.
Two is that you would have a whole second round of the “why wasn’t Rove charged” spec which is just another hit on the trust front for an already diminished institution.
Three is you could have all kinds of political firestorms with the Cheneyites, the Rovians, the Dems etc. all with a FOx News backdrop and the DOJ sitting in everyone’s crosshairs.
Fourth is you really could have people who become afraid to pass on spec in an interview, for fear that it might get publicized later and they might get sued or politically targeted by whoever they were spec’ing about.
OTOH, I’m probably wrong on the third party aspersions, bc I can’t imagine that something like third party interests would be involved without DOJ doing a much much better job of making out their case for confidentiality and on a much more court-sympathetic grounds.
I do tend to think the USA firing was a pretty different situation. For one thing, it bought Obama a raft of high profile Republican Prosecutor support to go the way he did. This won’t buy Obama anything he wants.
Don’t you think Fitz would have been a little less aggressive in his letter saying the thing was fair game if that was the case?
50/52 Probably, (which is why I mention that I’m likely wrong) but despite thinking that, I still trend towards thinking that is part of what is going on and I think language in gov’s briefing supports that kind of a take. I could spec, too, that Fitzgerald might have thought he had a shot at Rove and there were some undercurrents we don’t know about that kept that from happening, with a result that he opted out of taking a position to be protective of the interview. If he got pressure to drop Rove, he might have wanted to drop the publicaton of an interview that highlights him in someone else’s lap.
But really, even more so than Fitzgerald, I think the thing that cuts against my theory is that DOJ didn’t make the argument. It would have been a much better one for them to make (that there may be discussions of unindicted, non-charged, non-targets that might adversely impact them or their reputations or livelihoods etc.) So even if I were betting, I’d probably have to bet against me, but I keep coming back to thinking it anyway. That Cheney’s approach to getting LIbby out of the pot about to boil would have been not so much to give him a hand out, as to toss other bodies in and let Libby crawl out over them.
fwiw and here I’d be the first to say it’s worth what you paid for it. *g*
Two things–note there are no deliberative references to Rove in the document.
Also, I’m certain that Fitz thought his ultimate target was Cheney. He actually did protect the Cheney and Rove bits in his affys after the verdict, but when–after Libby’s sentence was commuted–he was asked if the interview could be liberated, he was seemingly happy enough to liberate it.
I’m with bmaz. I don’t think Fitz would have been so willing to let Rove stuff out. It’d be inconsistent with a lot he’s done on this case.
I’m not sure what you mean by the USA firing. Rove’s and Miers’ testimony won’t affect Dannehy’s investigation one way or another (indeed, we know ROve testified to both). Frankly, the two things that HJC is investigating but Dannehy is not are 1) Siegelman, and 2) Fitz’ attempted firing. The former is Dem stuff, the latter is not going anywhere. SO there’s nothing that Obama gets, according to your scenario (aside from being able to be the broker on a separation of power issue, thereby affirming the primacy of Article II, which probably makes GC spooge).
You simply cannot discount the GC spooge aspect though; where do you think man with two first names gets all that gel for his hair??
Yick. Uck. Pew.
There is not such a role here, admittedly, which is, to me, the biggest difference. That said, I’m leaning towards Obama taking the delay, but then not appealing.
(Just call me Solomon)
But that only buys him thirty days. Is that is your final answer?
Rayne @58 – I have no idea why you think I wouldn’t go there. It was a hanging curveball…..
oH jeebus. Now that I did not expect from you…
There’s Something About, M…,er, Dick.
I can hear the duo strumming in the trees. All’s that’s missing is for prom date Dick to get caught in his torture zipper.
When Democrats behave this way, they reaffirm the notion that they are feckless, weak and unwilling to fight and stand up for themselves.
Stockholm Syndrome at its level best.
-G
“Two is that you would have a whole second round of the “why wasn’t Rove charged” spec which is just another hit on the trust front for an already diminished institution.”
“all ready diminished institution”
to think that they did this to themselves.
What a fucking cat and mouse game. These our are leaders, purposely outing an undercover agent..and then every one walks. And they want us to respect or have faith in this so called justice system?
I thought Fitz really called Cheney out with the “clouds” over the Vice Presidents office. And Cheney created those clouds.
How can the Justice system even consider withholding Cheney’s interview?
I hope that was a rhetorical device and you don’t really think they are listening to you, EW.
Hell, we got the Pope here, why shouldn’t mere heathens like Holder and Obama listen?
Thanks again for the transcript links, bmaz and, Um, can I go with “Sol?” *g*
Plaintiff references two DC Cir opinions about not needing to giv deference on state secrets if there has been a prior fraud on the court – those would be interesting cases.
OT – Shorter Sarah Palin: “Ethics? Never any have I owned. Never any has my family owned.” (9 page PDF).
And a wee bit of humor from Vanity Fair:
Palin’s Resignation: The Edited Version
The same place civilized people learn manners and the restraint and propriety to operate within the norms of an established group. It is a concept you might consider.
Oop – it seems I’ve inherited someone else’s wind .
But I did recognize the guy under the helmut as bmaz, and I realize he was really not after me, but Henglish Kaniggets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBUl7oT9sA
No no that was a comment to Plunger who was whining about the “self censorship” in this thread. Sorry about the confusion. Don’t know where Plunger’s comment went…..
Suitable for a thread on Papa Dick/Daffy Dick’s emerging from his undisclosed location to acquire some bodyguards to take him for the occasional walk on the dark side, it seems to have been disappeared.
No worries about the confusion; that’s why I referred to inheriting the wind intended for another — again, as it turns out, a suitable ill one.
As I said earlier about Perris being on the trail. (my own opinion naturally), I see Mary (as in 49 and later) is also on the trail.
Despite emptywheel’s assertions (and hopes) that any White House official up to the President can be “legally” questioned and they have to tell all or face perjury charges, there is a vast divide between not telling a lie and telling something useful in an investigation. (Assuming you aren’t asked if you had sex with a particular person, but then we saw how cleverly that could be handled didn’t we?)
I think as indicated above, Mr Cheney took the opportunity of his DOJ/FBI interview to seed the clouds, to lay doubts all about, to lace the conversation with names, with secrets and hints of secrets, and probably also dropped a few democrats names (congress, and their friends) into the pot. For example: “Perhaps …” “Or maybe …” “I heard somewhere …” “In my opinion only …” “It must have been …” …
As I said in an earlier post Cheney “salted the mine.” Fitzgerald didn’t want to go there, but still he chaffed at having been bluffed off. Thus the snide remarks about the cloud and Cheney. Later after much thought and analysis, and a commutation, he had become even more chagrined when he said he didn’t care if Cheney’s interview was published.
I will put it another way. Do any of you think that Cheney didn’t know full well what he was doing? He always knows what he is doing. He and Rove are masters at this kind of game. One of answering questions in such a way that they are not indictable for a crime including perjury. Mr Libby wasn’t so able, and he took some chances that came back and bit him.
If Cheney’s interview is released, it will embarrass Fitzgerald, the FBI, the DOJ, and many other people. There will be a whirlwind of charges, counter charges, and suits that will cause President Obama’s administration endless trouble trying to contain.
It will also set a precedent, small or not, of other future interviews being published. No person in power wants that kind of precedent no matter what they say to their base.
Congratulations Mary.
Somehow after watching the Republican controlled congress hold Clinton accountable for lying under oath about his b.j’s we naively assumed that those same Republicans would have considered holding an administration accountable for a war based on lies, purposely outing an undercover agent who had placed her own life on the line for the safety of her country, undermining the DOJ, etc etc.