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Speaking of that Man-Sized Safe…

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JimWhite noted that Senators Leahy, Jello Jay, DiFi, and Whitehouse have written the White House to warn Cheney to stop shredding. The letter seems to be a response–at least in part–to this passage from Barton Gellman’s Angler.

The command center of "the president’s program," as Addington usually called it, was not in the White House. Its controlling documents, which gave strategic direction to the nation’s largest spy agency, lived in a vault across an alley from the West Wing [7] — in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on the east side of the second floor, where the vice president headquartered his staff.

The vault was in EEOB 268, Addington’s office. Cheney’s lawyer held the documents, physical and electronic, because he was the one who wrote them. New forms of domestic espionage were created and developed over time in presidential authorizations that Addington typed on a Tempest-shielded computer across from his desk [8].

It is unlikely that the history of U.S. intelligence includes another operation conceived and supervised by the office of the vice president. White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had "no idea," he said, that the presidential orders were held in a vice presidential safe. An authoritative source said the staff secretariat, which kept a comprehensive inventory of presidential papers, classified and unclassified, possessed no record of these.

In an interview, Card said the Executive Office of the President, a formal term that encompassed Bush’s staff but not Cheney’s, followed strict procedures for handling and securing presidential papers.

"If there were exceptions to that, I’m not aware of them," he said. "If these documents weren’t stored the right way or put in the right places or maintained by the right people, I’m not aware of it."

The Senators ask, 

Have you investigated allegations reported in the Washington Post on September 14, 2008, that the "staff secretariat, which kept a comprehensive inventory of presidential papers, classified and unclassified, possessed no record of" presidential orders in the safe of the Counsel to the Vice President? If so, what were the results of your investigation.

In addition, they also ask specifically about Dick’s own notes (and those of Addington and Libby and Bush, if he actually ever kept notes)a.

Does the White House believe that any notes or documents created by the President, the Vice President or their respective staffs may be destroyed without consultation with the Archivist? If so, which notes or documents, and why?

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George Bush’s 69 for Scooter Libby

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Tweety has started to count the days left for George Bush to pardon Scooter Libby. Bush has 69 days left to–as Tweety accurately describes it–complete the cover-up of the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity.

I’m glad Tweety’s bringing this to attention, particularly since, with Waxman’s designs on John Dingell’s Chairmanship at the Energy and Commerce Committee, Waxman may well drop his quest to get Dick Cheney’s FBI interview report from DOJ. 

But it’s worth remembering this pardon will only complete the cover-up of one of Bush’s crimes. I’m just as interested in discussing the names of those–like David Addington, or Turdblossom, or Alberto Gonzales, or Cheney himself–whose silence Bush may be contemplating buying in the next 69 days. That discussion is particularly relevant since President-elect Obama seems intent on making a deal that will give Congress some of the documents they were entitled to in their oversight role, rather than have the principle of Congressional oversight of the President affirmed. 

Libby’s just the guy who got caught. He’s by no means the only one carrying out a cover-up.

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Dick Invites Joe to See the Man-Sized Safe and Industrial Shredding Machine

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I know that it was really neat to see how the Bushes welcomed Barack and Michelle to their new digs. The Obamas looked so glamorous and confident and all that.

But this is the meeting I want to see first-hand:

The Vice President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden have been invited by Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne to the Naval Observatory on Thursday at 5:15pm for a private meeting and tour of the residence.  The arrival of the Vice President-elect and Dr. Biden will be pooled.  The meeting will be closed press.  An official photo of the Bidens and Cheneys will be released following the meeting. 

I mean, how do you think Jill Biden will respond when Dick tells her husband to go fuck himself?

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No One Could Have Imagined an IG Report on Warrantless Wiretapping Would Suck

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In an article claiming, inaccurately, that few people noticed the debates over the requirement for an Inspector General’s report on the illegal warrantless wiretap program…

The little-noticed provision for a public inspectors-general report was crucial to gaining the support of some liberal Democrats—including Sen. Barack Obama—for last summer’s bill, which allowed a modified version of the program to continue.

…and along with the news that the CIA Inspector General John Helgerson–who will be managing this investigation–did not submit an unclassified report that was not required by the law…

But when the inspectors general recently submitted their first "interim" report to Congress under the measure, it wasn’t made public. Instead, the brief document, written by CIA inspector general John Helgerson, was marked classified—a move that has drawn a stiff protest from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes.

Isikoff and Hosenball reveal what I argued some time ago–there are functional problems having an IG conduct this investigation instead of (as the House originally demanded) an independent commission with subpoena power. Most importantly, while Inspectors General of the relevant agencies can inspect their own agencies, they’ve got no jurisdiction to investigate the White House.

Reyes’s letter also included a request that the inspectors general issue a "preservation order" preventing White House or intelligence community officials from removing or destroying documents relating to the warrantless-surveillance program. With barely three months left in the administration, Reyes wanted to make sure that "they don’t destroy anything before they walk out the door," Littig says.

[snip]

As for the demands for a preservation order, the official said: "Directives have been issued to preserve records relating to this surveillance program. But, as Congress is aware, intelligence community inspectors general have clearly defined authorities. Those authorities don’t, as a rule, extend to giving orders to the White House." [my emphasis]

And as we know–from Barton Gellman’s Angler among other sources–most of this stuff is safely in Cheney’s man-sized safe in the White House. And as we saw with Glenn Fine’s investigation into the US Attorney firings, the White House can blow off the Inspectors General with glee. 

Golly. Who would have imagined that an IG report on warrantless wiretapping wouldn’t accomplish what it was promised to accomplish???

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Prison Is the Bank?

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2001dualback_poster.jpgI hope these counter-intelligence folks know what they’re talking about. 

Because Dick Cheney ordered the leak of a CIA spy’s identity, and he got to remain Vice President for five more years.

Though, as an optimist, I’m not ruling out "prison is the bank" in the future.

(Photoshop love from twolf)

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Tom Davis Supports Waxman’s Demand for Cheney’s Interview Materials

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Retiring GOP Congressman Tom Davis must have accepted that we’ll soon have a Democrat in the White House. He has joined Henry Waxman in declaring Bush’s (Mukasey’s, really) invocation of executive privilege with regards to the Cheney interview notes in the CIA Leak Case to be improper.

 On a bipartisan basis, the Committee finds that the President’s assertion of executive privilege over the report of the Vice President’s interview was legally unprecedented and an inappropriate use of executive privilege. The assertion of executive privilege prevents the Committee from having access to a complete set of records and thus results in the Committee’s inability to assess fully the actions of the Vice President.

Mind you, I don’t know what effect this report will have. As we’ve seen with the US Attorney subpoenas, the White House can stall anything until the end of the Administration (and until Bush pre-emptively pardons Cheney and Libby for outing a CIA spy). At which point–given the way the polls are headed–Obama’s new AG could turn over the Cheney interview materials. 

I’m most curious about Davis’ cooperation on this, but not Waxman’s demand that DOJ unredact the reports the Committee already has (these redactions include references to both Bush and Cheney), because I believe Davis was party to the Administration’s second firewall on the CIA Leak Case–the Cheney claim that he could (and presumably did) insta-declassify Plame’s identity all by himself.

When the Oversight Committee had a hearing on CIA Leak Case, remember, Davis went to some length to try to get Bill Leonard to state that both the President and the Vice President had authority to declassify at will. 

And, after the country’s head of Information Security, Bill Leonard, asserted at the Waxman hearing that the President has absolute authority to declassify things, Congressman Tom Davis tried to sneak such authority for the Vice President into the Congressional Record:

Davis: Mr. Leonard, let me ask. Does the President or the Vice President have the authority to declassify on the spot?

Leonard: As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Davis, the President’s authority in this area is absolute, pursuant to the Constitution, …

Davis: So they can do it on the spot. Can they declassify for limited purposes?

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Fourth Branch Sarah

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I’m sort of busy today, preparing for the special Monday Book Salon with Bart Gellman, talking about his book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The book salon with be at 3PM ET, so prepare your questions. 

But I confess that reading the book after watching the VP Debate the other night made me laugh–rather than shudder–at Palin’s clear hopes of following in the path of Fourth Branch Dick.

IFILL: Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is the vice president does every day. You, senator, said, you would not be vice president under any circumstances. Now maybe this was just what was going on at the time. But tell us now, looking forward, what it is you think the vice presidency is worth now.

[snip]

PALIN: No, no. Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs. That’s near and dear to my heart also. In those arenas, John McCain has already tapped me and said, that’s where I want you, I want you to lead. I said, I can’t wait to get and there go to work with you.

[snip]

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. Read more →

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VP Debate: Shredding the Constitution v. Duck [sic] Hunting

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I wonder if Palin would have had more problems with Dick Cheney’s drunken hunting accident if she knew that he was hunting quail, not duck.

Katie Couric: What do you think is the best and worst thing that Dick Cheney has done as vice president?

Joe Biden: I’m not being a wise guy here … that I don’t know what he’s done. I mean, there’s not many things I’d pick that I thought he’s done that have been good. But I admire his strength. I admire his willingness to take positions that are completely contrary to popular opinion. But I think that what he’s done has been just, I don’t think Dick Cheney trusts that the American people can make judgments that are in the interest of the country. But the thing I think he’s really, really has done: I think he’s done more harm than any other single high elected official in memory in terms of shredding the constitution. You know, condoning torture, pushing torture as a policy. This idea of a unitary executive, meaning the Congress and the people have no power in a time of war, and the president controls everything. I don’t have any animus toward Dick Cheney but I really do think his attitude about the constitution and the prosecution of this war has been absolutely wrong.

Palin: Worst thing, I guess that would have been the duck-hunting accident, where you know, that was an accident. And that I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate.

So, the best thing though, he’s shown support, along with George W. Bush, of our troops. And I’ve been there when George Bush has spoken to families of those who have suffered greatly, those who are serving in the military. I’ve been there when President Bush has embraced those families and expressed the concern and the sympathy speaking for all of America in those times. And for Dick Cheney to have supported that effort of George Bush’s. I respect that.

Then again, two of the things Dick did while quail hunting–doing so without a current license and drinking at an inappropriate time–are things Palin tried to get her former brother-in-law fired for. So I guess, for Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney can do no wrong. 

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Bush and Cheney Responsible for Five Suspected Terrorists Going Free

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A Court in the UK just convicted three men it had charged with plotting to make bombs from bottles of liquid and explode them on planes flying over the Atlantic.

Three Britons were found guilty on Monday of plotting to kill people using homemade liquid bombs, but a jury failed to agree that they intended to blow up transatlantic airliners.

After a five-month trial, the jury found Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain guilty of conspiring to kill "persons unknown" but were not convinced by the prosecution’s case that they planned to target aircraft leaving London’s Heathrow airport headed for North America.

But it failed to convict a majority of the eight men it had charged.

The jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of four other defendants and an eighth was cleared on all counts. 

We’ll never know, but there’s a decent likelihood British officials could have convicted all the suspects had Bush and Cheney not prematurely trumped up these plans into a terror scare right before the 2006 elections.  As Ron Suskind described, Bush and Cheney pushed the Pakistanis to break this, in spite of demands from the UK that the investigators allow their work to continue to fruition.

NPR: I want to talk just a little about this fascinating episode you describe in the summer of 2006, when President Bush is very anxious about some intelligence briefings that he is getting from the British. What are they telling him?

SUSKIND: In late July of 2006, the British are moving forward on a mission they’ve been–an investigation they’ve been at for a year at that point, where they’ve got a group of "plotters," so-called, in the London area that they’ve been tracking…Bush gets this briefing at the end of July of 2006, and he’s very agitated. When Blair comes at the end of the month, they talk about it and he says, "Look, I want this thing, this trap snapped shut immediately." Blair’s like, "Well, look, be patient here. What we do in Britain"–Blair describes, and this is something well known to Bush–"is we try to be more patient so they move a bit forward. These guys are not going to breathe without us knowing it. Read more →

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Once Again, the Federal Government Uses Valerie to Screw Joe

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I’m not so much surprised that Judges Sentelle and Henderson dismissed the Wilsons’ appeal yesterday–I’m more surprised by the false ignorance through which they dismiss the Wilsons’ Bivens complaint (a Bivens claim allows a person to sue federal agents when they violate that person’s constitutional rights).

At the rhetorical foundation of Sentelle’s opinion lies the repetition of one of the biggest myths about the Plame leak–that Rove (and for that matter, Libby and his secret July 9 conversation with Novak) had nothing to do with Robert Novak’s article outing Plame, that Armitage acted alone.

In July, Libby talked to Judith Miller of The New York Times and to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine; Karl Rove talked to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball;” and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with reporter Robert Novak. Armitage, who had learned of Valerie Wilson’s CIA employment from a State Department memo, told Novak that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA on issues relating to weapons of mass destruction. Novak then wrote an article that was published in several newspapers, including The Washington Post and the Chicago Sun Times, on July 14, 2003.

[snip]

The publication was the result of a disclosure by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage of information about an individual contained in State Department records.

Um, sure, the publication was the result of a disclosure by Blabby Armitage. But then, that State Department memo was written as a direct result of Libby’s own oppo research, so it was also the result of Libby’s attempt to gather dirt on Joe Wilson. And of course, Novak wouldn’t have written his column without the "confirmation" from Rove, who got his information from some other source; he has always denied seeing the INR memo. So it is likely that that letter also was the result of Dick Cheney’s own efforts to collect information with which to embarrass Wilson. (Novak’s column was also the result of the Off the Record club brokering the leak, too–private citizens who could have much more easily been sued, but that’s a weakness in the Wilsons’ suit, not the Court’s opinion.)

I suspect there’s a reason for the Court’s feigned ignorance here. Read more →

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