Marty Lederman on the the "substance" of the Addington letter

[ProSense]

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Addington Speaks!

Marty Lederman
(UPDATED to address the "substance" of the Addington letter)

More than one year ago, the Director of the Archives Information Security Oversight Office wrote to David Addington asking for an explanation of why the Office of the Vice President was not complying with Executive Order 12958, which requires all executive branch "entities" to issue reports to the ISOO so that the latter can oversee such entities’ handling of classified documents.

No response from Addington.

The ISOO Director wrote to Addington again in August.

Once again, the OVP did not bother to respond.

At which point the ISOO Director wrote to DOJ on January 9th, asking the AG and OLC to resolve the legal question that Addington would not even deem worthy of addressing.

More than half-a-year later, no word from DOJ, nor even a responsive memo from the OVP, even though the legal question is exceedingly simple.

Congressman Waxman wrote to the Vice President last week, seeking an explanation.

The only response was painful obfuscation from the White House Deputy Press Secretary.

Finally, just yesterday, Senator Kerry wrote to Addington, concerned by recent reports that the Vice President refused to comply with the E.O. on the theory that he is both a legislative and an executive officer -- or perhaps that the VP is not quite in either branch!

And whadda ya know?: Within 24 hours, Addington has responded!

In his two-paragraph letter, Addington writes that the E.O. "makes clear" that the Vice President and President are to be treated alike, and "distinguishes the two of them from 'agencies.'" Since only "agencies" (defined broadly to include all "entities" within the executive branch) have a reporting obligation, Addington suggests that the President and the VP -- non-agencies -- do not.

As the Washington Post (which inexplicably does not publish or link to the actual Addington letter -- when are they going to learn?) gingerly puts the point, "Addington did not cite specific language in the executive order supporting this view, and a Cheney spokeswoman could not point to such language last night."

<...>

(NOTE: Senator Kerry's quick reply letter to Addington is here.)

I'm less interested here in the merits of Addington's arguments, however, than by the odd way in which the arguments were presented. The relevant Executive branch agency tasked -- by the President -- with enforcement writes to the OVP twice, and is unceremoniously ignored. That agency then writes to DOJ to break the logjam, and no one even bothers to acknowledge receipt of the letter, let alone answer the question.

<...>

In a great series of posts, all linked here, Hilzoy concludes that the Becker/Gellman story can only be explained by a bunch of cabinet officials who are dysfunctional, allowing an "insane" process to continue unabated. She focuses on the astonishing fact that Colin Powell and Condi Rice only found out about the August 2002 Torture memo from newspaper accounts two years after the fact:

Stop and think about that for a moment. A memo making an absolutely radical, 180 degree change in US detention and interrogation policy in ways that will predictably have an enormous impact on our standing in the world is signed, and neither the Secretary of State nor the National Security Advisor finds out about it until two years later? From a newspaper article?

<...>

Hilzoy's co-blogger Publius offers an even more comprehensive indictment -- of all of us: "The reason Cheney’s Office got to dominate the executive branch is because we -- America -- elected a neophyte who lacked the experience, knowledge, and judgment to be president. . . . Our nation’s political machinery elevated a grossly inexperienced and ignorant man to the Oval Office. The entirely predictable result is that he would be forced to rely on someone else to make the decisions he wasn’t able or willing to make."

I'm not sure about this. Even if Bush didn't have the chops to make decisions himself -- and in that respect, he wouldn't be alone among Presidents -- what explains his constant deference to Cheney, and his refusal to listen to any of his other trusted advisers? Publius surmises that Bush was simply rolled by Cheney and Rumsfeld, because they were more savvy than their competitors for the President's approval. I don't know, but it's a point worth considering:

It’s pretty simple. When you elect someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’re essentially electing someone else to be president. Kerry and Gore had their flaws, but they would have been the Deciders. They certainly would not have tolerated a lawless, out-of-control operation such as Cheney’s Office. At the very least, they would have, you know, been aware of the debates and had some pre-existing knowledge to inform their judgment. Bush, by contrast, was simply no match for Cheney and Rumsfeld’s decades of experience. Thus, the failure that is Cheney is not merely an individual failure on the part of Bush. Cheney is an institutional failure -- a failure of our political system. That’s the key to understand. The rise of Cheney is itself an indictment of our political institutions and culture.

Addington's letter

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[riderinthestorm]

2. Another great summation wothy of recommending.

Kick! :kick: More voices gaining strength and power. I love it!

[Emit]

3. What explains his constant deference to Cheney?

Maybe it was planned from the start? Maybe the past 7 years have been nothing more than an elaborate twist on the COG plans Cheney and Rumsfeld participated in, with Bush as nothing more than one of these faux American "presidents":


Read the excerpt here for context:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1171716&mesg_id=1171909

This was not some abstract textbook plan but was practiced in concrete, thorough and elaborate detail. The Reagan administration assigned personnel to three teams, each named for a color, such as red and blue. Each team included an experienced leader, who could operate as a new White House chief of staff. The obvious candidates were people who had already served at a high level in the executive branch, preferable with experience in the national security apparatus. This was where Cheney and Rumsfeld came in since they had previously served as White House chief of staff in the Ford administration. Besides Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were regulars, other team leaders over the years included James Woolsey, later the director of Central Intelligence, and Kenneth Duberstein, who worked for a time as Reagan's real-life White House chief of staff.

Each time a team left Washington, it brought along a single member of Reagan's cabinet, who was designated to serve as the next American "president." Some of these cabinet members had little experience in national security; at various times, for example, the participants in the secret exercises included Reagan's first secretary of agriculture, John Block, and commerce secretary Malcolm Baldrige. What counted was not experience in foreign policy, but simply that the cabinet member was available to fly out of Washington with the team. It seems fair to conclude that some of these American "presidents" would have served as mere figureheads for their more experienced chiefs of staff, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld. Still, cabinet members were the ones who would issue orders (or in whose name the orders would be issued).

Rise of the Vulcans, James Mann, pp. 140-141

... Reagan established his continuity of government program under a secret executive order. According to Robert McFarlane, who served for a time as Reagan's national security advisor, the president himself made the final decisions on who would head each of the special teams, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld. Within Reagan's National Security Council, the "action officer" for the secret program was Oliver North, later the central figure in the Iran-contra scandal. Vice President George H. W. Bush was given authority to supervise some of these efforts, which were run by a new government agency with the bland name of the National Program Office. It had its own building in the Washington area, run by a two-star general, and a secret budget adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Much of the money was used to buy advanced communications equipment that would enable the new teams to have secure conversations with American military commanders. In fact, the few details that came to light about the secret program were the result of allegations of waste and abuses in awarding these communications contracts to private companies and of the malfunctioning of equipment.

The exercises were usually timed to take place during a congressional recess, so that Cheney, one of the three team leaders, would miss as little work on Capitol Hill as possible. Although Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other team leaders took part in each exercise, the Reagan cabinet members playing the new "president" changed, depending on which cabinet official was free at a particular time.

In addition to the designated White House chief of staff and his "president," each team would include representatives of the State and Defense Departments and the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as various domestic policy agencies. The idea was to practice running the entire federal government during a nuclear war. ...

~snip~

Rise of the Vulcans, James Mann, pp. 142-144

[bleever]

4. "The rise of Cheney is itself an indictment of our political institutions and culture. "

Our government is inherently self-correcting, so I believe our governmental system will correct for Cheney/Rumsfeld, as it has corrected in past times for monopolies, civil rights, and Watergate.

It will work, but it will be too slow. It might be incomplete.

Here on the forefront, we have the power to make it faster and more complete.

:thumbsup: