THE PLANK JUNE 27, 2007
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So now David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, is trying to back away from the claim that the vice-president is somehow outside the executive branch. He does, however, say that the order governing the handling of classified material was only supposed to apply to executive-branch "agencies" and not the vice-president. Of course, he doesn't point to any specific language here, but hey, who needs specific language?
If anyone wants to get deep in the weeds, Jack Balkin has a lengthy explanation of why Addington's argument is preposterous. For the record, here's the relevant part of the order, as amended by Bush in 2003:
(b) "Agency" means any "Executive agency," as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105; any "Military department" as defined in 5 U.S.C. 102; and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.
Let's see, would that include the vice-president's office or not? That's a tough one. Pretty much the only way to wiggle out of this one is to stick with the claim that Cheney isn't an "entity within the executive branch." Why's Addington being so coy?
--Bradford Plumer
8 comments
I think Addington or Cheney will come back with a dispute over the word "entity" or "within" or perhaps "the." This is how lawyers as a profession get a bad name.
- stgla
June 27, 2007 at 2:24pm
The guy who sued the cleaners for $54 million for losing his pants gives attorneys a bad name. Addington just gives government a bad name.
- mghogwild
June 27, 2007 at 4:27pm
won't be remembered for more than 15 minutes..Cheney and GWB will be remembered for a lot longer for the damage they have done to this country and its institutions.
- jerrystn
June 27, 2007 at 4:56pm
Under the constitution, the VP is the president of the senate. Thus, Cheney is a member of the legislative branch!
- davidsmith192
June 27, 2007 at 6:37pm
I'd be ok with that as soon as he moves his office out of the White House and stops claiming executive privlege. Unfortunately the Constitution also defines the terms of his election and removal from office in the section establishing the Executive Branch. The truth is that he isn't really supposed to be all that active in either.
- jerrystn
June 28, 2007 at 8:57am
Addington has issued a brief claiming that his boss Dick Cheney is a secret member of the Supreme Court because, like the Justices, Mr. Cheney wears black robes and has a fancy high backed chair in his office.
- stgla
June 28, 2007 at 9:49am
Go back to having the VP be the 2nd place finisher in the run for President, and give him some real duties and departments (non-military, of course) that provide him a little power of his own. Having a high-level member of an opposing party working just down the hall would help keep future presidents honest. (Yes, I know it won't happen, but I just thought I'd throw it out there anyway.)
- dhauck
June 28, 2007 at 12:26pm
Notice that Addington does not *deny* the earlier argument, he just reserves it for another day. I admit I'm rather disappointed, also, to see the pedestrian nature of the fallback argument. I was hoping that Addington would take the ontological relativity route, and deny that Cheney (or his office) is in fact an "entity."
- nancyirving
June 30, 2007 at 5:19am