The Hill
Tuesday 26 June 2007
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) yesterday warned Dick Cheney that his office would risk losing its budget unless the vice president agrees to follow a presidential directive ordering the protection of classified information.
Durbin chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government, which writes the executive-branch spending bill that funds the vice president's budget.
Durbin's warning came as Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), No. 3 in Democratic leadership, said that he would "seriously consider" joining House counterparts in seeking to yank funding for Cheney's office after the vice president contended that his office is a hybrid entity that is neither legislative nor executive.
"The decision to exempt your office from this system for protecting classified information is deeply troubling because it could place national security secrets at risk," Durbin wrote to Cheney yesterday. Durbin did not specify how appropriators would hit Cheney's funding.
Durbin's subcommittee is slated to mark up its spending bill just after July 4th recess. The House will take up its version of the bill this week, and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) is vowing a floor push to strike all $4.4 million of the vice president's budget.
Durbin called on Cheney to avert the funds cut by immediately adhering to the 1995 executive order at issue. That directive refers to executive "agencies," a designation that both Cheney and President Bush believe does not apply to the vice president.
Schumer, while noting that Emanuel's approach would not practically ensure Cheney's compliance, appeared as ready as Durbin to take a muscular stance against the vice president. "I'd much prefer ... Cheney just comply with the law and we not have to use this kind of leverage, but it's something I'd seriously consider," Schumer said.
Schumer also called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to withdraw from the Department of Justice's (DoJ) debate over whether Cheney can ignore the rules on safeguarding classified data.
"It's clear to just about everyone in America that the attorney general has lost the faith and trust of the American people in making impartial decisions when it affects the president and the vice president," Schumer told reporters yesterday.
For his part, Emanuel said fellow House leaders are encouraging his purse-strings counterpunch, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) termed "not a bad idea at all" during a Sunday Fox News interview.
"I've talked to the Speaker's office," Emanuel said. "Not only is she OK with me bringing it up, she supports it."
The clash over classification opens a new front for Democrats in their ongoing oversight battle with the administration. Gonzales got involved in January, when the little-known Information Security Oversight Office, a unit of the National Archives, asked the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel to review whether Cheney was subject to the executive order.
But when Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, requested DoJ documents on the Cheney question this month, the agency told him none were available - strongly suggesting that no work has been done to resolve Cheney's role.
"The overriding fact to me is that the attorney general has not acted in the past five months," Aftergood said of his request, first reported this weekend in Newsweek. "That raises the question of whether he's somehow covering for the vice president or yielding to him."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino yesterday defended Cheney's interpretation of his office while declining to address contradictions between the vice president's previous claims to executive privilege and his current argument that he is not part of the executive.
Perino also appeared to suggest that a DoJ ruling on Cheney's role is not necessary because President Bush did not intend the rules to apply to his vice president.
"[The issue] can be resolved either by the Justice Department or, as I am telling you as the president's spokesman, he did not intend for the vice president to be seen as separate from himself," Perino told reporters.
Emanuel's amendment, to be debated Wednesday, would put Cheney's executive-branch funding on hold until a determination is made by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, on whether Cheney is a member of the executive or legislative branch.
"I'm going to let the money follow his logic," Emanuel said. "One moment he's not a part of the executive branch so he can be above the law, but he wants money as part of the executive branch."
Cheney's argument is proving hard for some Republicans to defend. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) suggested over the weekend that the judiciary should decide the dispute. Aftergood and other government-transparency advocates noted, however, that Congress would first have accomplish the tricky feat of giving itself standing in court.
But most House Republicans called Emanuel's maneuver a desperate and meaningless gesture.
"The clock on the first quarter is running out, they have no points on the board, so why not throw up a brick from half court on the way to the locker room?" asked Brian Kennedy, spokesman to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). "Where's the beer guy?"
Cheney's office, meanwhile, is staying on the offensive: "Congressman Emanuel has a choice to make - deal with serious issues or create more partisan politics," vice presidential spokeswoman Lee Ann McBride said.
Cheney's Moves on Secrecy Stir Storm Over Office's Dual Role
By Peter Grier
The Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday 26 June 2007
The vice president argues his office is exempt from executive branch classified-data protocol.
Washington - Is Vice President Dick Cheney's office an executive branch agency? Or is it a Washington hybrid that works for both the executive and legislative branches of the US government? That's the underlying issue in a new controversy over Mr. Cheney's lack of cooperation with a government office charged with safeguarding national security information.
The whole matter sounds arcane, and in many ways it is. After all, it involves paperwork, classified information, and the filing of reports. But Democratic lawmakers say it is a serious matter that reflects on the vice president's penchant for secrecy รข€" and that they might even hold up the funding for his office as a result.
"That might not be a bad idea," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California about cutting Cheney's budget during a broadcast interview on June 24.
At issue is the work of the Information Security Oversight Office, a small part of the National Archives whose job it is to oversee the government-wide security classification system.
As part of that work, the office collects data on how much US material is classified and declassified. Per a signed presidential executive order, agencies of the executive branch are required to hand this information over.
Cheney's office provided this information in 2001 and 2002. Then it stopped.
Prodded by an outsider's complaint, last spring the National Archives sent letters to Cheney's office requesting the classification data. It received no response.
Administration officials say Cheney's office is exempt from the executive order, since it has both executive branch and legislative functions. Per the US Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate, and may vote to break ties in that chamber.
On June 22, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the executive order didn't intend Cheney's office to be treated as an administration agency.
"He's not exempt from following the laws of the United States," said Ms. Perino. "He's exempt just from this reporting requirement in this particular executive order."
Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California rejected this assertion as absurd. Representative Waxman is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the classification matter. In general, Waxman has been a thorn in the side of the White House since the Democrats gained control of Congress.
"The vice president can't unilaterally decide he is his own branch of government and exempt himself from important, commonsense safeguards for protecting classified information," said Waxman on June 22.
Waxman has also asserted that Cheney, in response to this controversy, has suggested that the Information Security Office be abolished. Perino said she did not believe that was the case.
The data that Cheney has refused to turn over is interesting, given the vice president's involvement in so many crucial national security decisions such as US policy on interrogation and detention of terror suspects, says one expert on government classification methods. A large number of classified documents might indicate an unusual degree of activity on the part of the vice president's office.
Still, the information at issue is just a raw number, nothing more.
"It's not very revealing stuff," says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy.
More interesting is the fact that Cheney has declined to reveal the number of documents, adds Mr. Aftergood, who claims it is like other vice presidential actions.
In 2001, Cheney attempted to block disclosure of the names of energy industry officials who met with his task force. He has withheld information about who works for him and who visits the vice presidential office.
As to where this issue goes next, one possibility is an attempt in Congress to eliminate funds for any executive branch activity by Cheney. He would be left with the approprations for his Senate activities, which is a relatively small amount.
Earlier this year, the Information Security Oversight Office sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting a legal interpretation as to whether the vice president's office is an agency and thus subject to classification disclosure rules.
The Justice Department has not yet ruled on this legal issue.
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