Thursday, June 21, 2007

Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.
Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman.
I believe that Cheney is the most corrupt Vice President in our nations history and the most dangerous. If he isn't part of the executive branch of government, what branch of government does he belong to? Does this mean that his staff will not be able to hide behind "Executive Privilege" when they are subpoenaed?
For the first two years of the George W. Bush administration, Cheney's office complied with a presidential order that requires officials to report statistics on the number of documents it classifies and declassifies.

Since 2003, however, Cheney's office has refused to submit the data to ISOO. And when ISOO inspectors tried in 2004 to schedule a routine inspection of the vice president's offices, they were rebuffed, Waxman's letter claims.

Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, did not object to similar inspections, according to Waxman.

I say call his bluff and let the subpoenas fly.

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