tod
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Unitary Executive or Co-President? Constitutional?
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Feb 17 22:56 UTC 2006 |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that an executive
order gives him the authority to declassify secret documents, but he would
not say whether he authorized an indicted former aide to release classified
information.
Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, told a grand jury he
was "authorized by his superiors" to disclose classified information from an
intelligence estimate on Iraq to reporters, the special prosecutor
investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA agent's identity told Libby's attorneys.
The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, did not identify who those "superiors"
are.
In an interview Wednesday with Fox News, Cheney said the case was "nothing
I can talk about." But he said he had the authority to declassify material
under an executive order that "focuses first and foremost on the president,
but also includes the vice president."
He would not disclose whether he had exercised that authority, however.
Libby was indicted in October on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice
and making false statements to investigators probing the July 2003 exposure
of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph
Wilson, had just emerged as a critic of the pre-war intelligence underpinning
the invasion of Iraq when her identity was disclosed.
According to Fitzgerald, Libby met on July 8, 2003, with New York Times
reporter Judith Miller to give her information regarding the U.S. National
Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. The document included much of the information
used to justify the invasion of Iraq earlier that year.
But a legal source involved in the case tells CNN that Libby has never
suggested and did not testify that anyone in the administration -- including
Cheney -- authorized outing Plame.
Cheney declined to discuss the investigation but said he had "cooperated
fully" with the special prosecutor. And he suggested he may have to testify
in Libby's trial, now tentatively set for January 2007.
"Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence," the vice president
said. "He's a great guy. I've worked with him for a long time, have enormous
regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case
and it's, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the
case."
Cheney's remarks came during an interview in which he accepted responsibility
for the weekend shooting of a companion during a south Texas quail hunt. (Full
story)
The wounded man, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, remained in intensive care
in a Corpus Christi hospital on Wednesday.
The incident's belated disclosure left the White House fending off questions
for three days and fueled renewed criticism of the vice president, with
Democrats calling it symbolic of an administration obsessed with secrecy.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/16/cheney.classified/
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jep
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response 3 of 32:
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Feb 20 18:01 UTC 2006 |
Under which Constitution is Scooter Libby entitled to be presumed
innocent? Is it the one which covers "suspected terrorists" held at
Guantanamo Bay, and which allows the president to secretly order
wiretaps of American citizens, or another one?
I imagine the president delegates all handling, classification,
declassification, etc. of secure documents to someone. If so, why
shouldn't he be able to delegate via the vice president? This type of
delegation doesn't make the vice president a "co-president". The
president delegates authority to millions of people (the entire
military, for example) but they're not considered as "co-presidents".
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