| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
24 Jun 2007 09:34:39 AM |
| Object: |
A New Cheney-Gonzo Mystery |
From NEWSWEEK, July 2-9, 2007 issue:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19391241/site/newsweek/?from=rss
A New Cheney-Gonzales Mystery
Tricky *****: Cheney is refusing a government review of his office
Khue Bui for Newsweek
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
A new battle has erupted over Vice President ***** Cheney's refusal to
submit to an executive order requiring a government review of his
handling of classified documents.
But the dispute could also raise questions for embattled Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales.
For the past four years, Cheney's office has failed to comply with an
executive order requiring all federal offices—including those in the
White House—to annually report to the National Archives on how they
safeguard classified documents.
Cheney's hard-line chief of staff, David Addington, has made the novel
argument that the veep doesn't have to comply on the ground that,
because the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, his
office is not really part of the executive branch.
Cheney's position so frustrated J. William Leonard, the chief of the
Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the
order, that he complained in January to Gonzales.
In a letter, Leonard wrote that Cheney's position was inconsistent
with the "plain text reading" of the executive order and asked the
attorney general for an official ruling.
But Gonzales never responded, thereby permitting Cheney to continue
blocking Leonard from conducting even a routine inspection of how the
veep's office was handling classified documents, according to
correspondence released by House Government Reform Committee chair
Rep. Henry Waxman.
Why didn't Gonzales act on Leonard's request?
His aides assured reporters that Leonard's letter has been "under
review" for the past five months—by Justice's Office of Legal Counsel
(OLC).
But on June 4, an OLC lawyer denied a Freedom of Information Act
request about the Cheney dispute asserting that OLC had "no documents"
on the matter, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NEWSWEEK.
Steve Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists researcher who
filed the request, said he found the denial letter "puzzling and
inexplicable"—especially since Leonard had copied OLC chief Steve
Bradbury on his original letter to Gonzales.
The FOIA response has piqued the interest of congressional
investigators, who note Bradbury is the same official in charge of
vetting all document requests from Congress about the U.S. attorneys
flap.
Asked about the apparent discrepancy, Justice spokesman Brian
Roehrkasse said the OLC response "was and remains accurate" because
Leonard's letter had generated no "substantive work product."
Waxman told NEWSWEEK he now plans to investigate the handling of the
issue by Justice as well as Cheney's refusal to comply with the
executive order, which he called part of a "pattern" of stonewalling
by the veep.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said, "We're confident we are
conducting the office properly under the law."
She also pointed to comments by White House Deputy Press Secretary
Dana Perino, who said that Bush, not the National Archives, was the
"sole enforcer" of the executive order relating to classified
information.
____________________________________________________
Harry
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