Cheney says he's in government's legislative branch

What does he want to hide except his criminal activity? One more reason to impeach Cheney. It is sad when you cannout trust your own officials.


Marc

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Cheney says he's in government's legislative branch
Vice president argues he's not part of executive branch of government to avoid rules on classified information.

Cheney - I don't have to follow the law!

By Julia Malone

WASHINGTON BUREAU

Friday, June 22, 2007


WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney, in resisting routine oversight of his office's handling of classified information, says that his office isn't actually part of the government's executive branch.

In a simmering dispute with the National Archives that heated up Thursday, Cheney has long maintained that he doesn't have to comply with an executive order on safeguarding classified information because, in fact, his office is part of the legislative branch of government.

Cheney, noting that his single constitutional duty is to serve as president of the Senate, holds that the vice president's office is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore not subject to annual reporting or periodic on-site inspections under the 1995 executive order, which was updated four years ago by President Bush.
The vice president has been refusing to cooperate with the National Archives office assigned to oversee the handling of classified data since 2003.

Rep. Henry Waxman, House Oversight Committee chairman, said he had learned that Cheney's office, in a move that "could be construed as retaliation," has even tried to abolish the Information Security Oversight Office, the division of the National Archives set up to enforce safeguards for classified information in executive agencies.
Waxman said the oversight office head, William Leonard, told congressional investigators that the vice president's staff hasn't been successful in the effort.
"I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy," said Waxman, D-Calif. "But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that he's not part of the executive branch, so he doesn't have to comply."

"We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," vice presidential spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.

Democrats took the opposite view. Waxman, in an eight-page letter sent Thursday to the vice president and posted on his committee's Web site, told Cheney it was "irresponsible" to reject security oversight.

"Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information," Waxman wrote. He cited the conviction of former top Cheney aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby for lying in the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., when asked about Cheney's claim to be part of the legislative branch, quipped: "I always thought that he was president of this administration."

Constitutional experts were startled at the notion that the vice presidency might not be in the executive branch.

"The vice president is saying he doesn't have to follow the orders of the president," said Garrett Epps, a law professor at the University of Oregon. "That's a very interesting proposition."

Epps said the lines haven't been drawn that clearly: "The vice president spans, in some ways, the branches of government."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino brushed off questions about what branch of the government the vice president resides in, saying she doesn't know enough about the issue.

Susan Low Bloch, a constitutional professor at Georgetown University Law Center, called Cheney's position a "novel claim."

She said that while most people think of vice presidents as executive officials, it's really "a bit of a hybrid" role.

As vice president, Cheney receives his paycheck from the U.S. Senate, which also pays the salaries of much of his staff. However, he also sits in the president's Cabinet meetings and has an office at the White House.

Cheney's lawyers have used his role as adviser to the president to fend off a lawsuit seeking the names of energy executives who advised him on an energy task force.
Paul Orfanedes, who leads litigation for Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan group that joined in that lawsuit, said the vice president's claim that his office is not an executive agency "seems most disingenuous."

The National Archives appealed its case for oversight of Cheney's classified information practices to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last January. Gonzales hasn't responded.

jmalone@coxnews.com.

Additional material from Washington Bureau writer Ian Lye and The New York Times.



Cheney refuses to cooperate with national security group

June 22, 2007
By Deb Riechmann Associated Press


WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney's idea of abolishing a government office charged with safeguarding national security information — and criticized him for refusing to cooperate with the agency.Cheney's office — over the objections of the National Archives — has exempted itself from a presidential executive order that seeks to protect national security information generated by the government, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.Under the order, executive branch offices are required to give the Information Security Oversight Office at the archives data on how much material it has classified and declassified.Cheney's office provided the information in 2001 and 2002, then stopped. Henry Waxman, chairman of the committee, said Cheney's office claims it need not comply with the executive order because it is not an "entity within the executive branch."



"Your decision to except your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Waxman wrote in a letter to Cheney on Thursday.Megan McGinn, a spokeswoman for the vice president, said Cheney's office was not breaking the law, but did not elaborate."We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," she said.The Information Security Oversight Office has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resolve the legal dispute over whether the order applies to Cheney's office. So far, the Justice Department has not ruled on the issue.Waxman said J. William Leonard, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, told the panel that after he sought advice from the Justice Department, Cheney's office recommended that the executive order be amended to abolish the ISOO. "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions," Waxman said.



Waxman said Leonard also told the panel that in 2004, Cheney's office blocked the archives from doing an onsite inspection of his office to make sure classified information was being properly protected."To my knowledge, this was the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the Information Security Oversight Office that a request for access to conduct a security inspection was denied by a White House office," Waxman wrote.The eight-page letter asks Cheney to respond to a series of questions about why he believes his office is exempt, and what steps his office has taken to ensure that national security information is protected.