Today is a new day. That means a new letter. Today's letter is from Henry Waxman, John Conyers and William Clay and it is addressed to Alberto Gonzales.
You might have thought that all this Dick Cheney is the 4th branch nonsense is brand new. Wrong, as WTWC's grape_crush pointed out a few days ago the Vice President has been making his 4th branch claim for years. It seems that On January 9,2007, J. William Leonard, Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, wrote to Alberto Gonzales requesting an interpretation as to whether the Office of the Vice President is bound by the executive order. According to the letter, Mr. Leonard's request was made pursuant to a provision in the executive order that requires the Attomey General to resolve legal questions in response to such inquiries. To date the Attorney General hasn't responded to Mr. Leonard's request. The very polite congressmen ask the Attorney General some questions
(1) What is the status of your department's response to the January 2007 request from the Archives?You might be wondering about the last question. Spencer Ackerman of TPMmuckraker has an idea
a. When did the review commence?
b. Which individuals at the department have been assigned to review this matter?
c. Please produce all documents relating to your department's review of this matter, including without limitation all communications, analyses, memoranda. or other documents.
(2) Have officials from the Department of Justice ever communicated with officials from the White House, including the Office of the Vice President, concerning the request from the Archives or the issue of whether the executive order does or should apply to the Office of the Vice President?
a. If so, please identifu and explain the substance of any such
communication.
b. Please produce all documents relating to any such communication
(3) Has the Department of Justice ever taken a position on or analyzed the issue of the status or existence of the Vice President or the Office of the Vice President within the executive branch, the legislative branch, both, or neither?
a. If so, please identiff all instances in which the department has addressed this issue and explain the position, if any taken by the department.
b. Please produce all documents relating to this issue, including memoranda, legal briefs, communications, and any other documents.
(4) Have officials from the White House, including the Office of the Vice President, ever cofirmunicated with ofñcials from the Department of Justice conceming the status or existence of the Vice President or the Office of the Vice President within the executive branch, the legislative branch, both, or neither?
a. If so, please identiff and explain the substance of any such
communication.
b. Please produce all documents relating to any such communication.
(5) When you were serving as White House Counsel, were you or anyone in your office involved in any way with drafting, assessing, or otherwise reviewing proposed revisions to the Executive Order in 2003?
a. If so, please explain whether you have considered recusing yourself from consideration of this issue.
b. Ifyou have elected not to recuse yourself please explain the basis for your decision.
If he was involved in the 2003 revision to EO 12958 (which became EO 13292), then he'd be able to speak to the question of whether the order always intended for the veep to be exempt -- which would further raise the question of whether Gonzales accepted David Addington's theory that the vice presidency is outside the executive branch. After all, the White House's fallback line in the controversy has been that president never "intended" for EO 13292 to apply to Cheney, thereby begging the question of what legal ground that contention is based upon. As White House counsel when President Bush revised the EO, Gonzales or a deputy must have looked at it; if no one from the counsel's office did, that itself is scandalous.Any thought whether and how the AG responds?
