Say what now?

Dick Cheney is telling the National Archives that his office is not part of the Executive Branch. I'm curious to know which branch he believes his Office belongs to. This is compounded by the absolutely stunning news that the DOJ has done exactly nothing despite a letter from Senator John Waters Henry Waxman.

h/t: Delaware Liberal

Comments

mkfreeberg said…
Dick Cheney is telling the National Archives that his office is not part of the Executive Branch. I'm curious to know which branch he believes his Office belongs to.

This is more likely to be a piece of overly-masticated legalspeak field hockey, than any sincere ponderings of what "Executive Branch" means between the Vice President's ears. It would be much more accurate to say "Dick Cheney is [saying] his office is not within the Executive Branch." And that looks like some real hair-splitting. And it is. But the distinction is all-meaningful to the legal argument Cheney's office is trying to make.

The issue is the legal language within Executive Order 13292, signed by President Bush, which amends President Clinton's Executive Order 12958. EO 12958, in turn, defines for its own purposes "Agency" in the following way:

(i) "Agency" means any "Executive agency," as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105, and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information. [emphasis mine]

And so Cheney's argument, as I understand it, is whether this term has been properly defined to legally apply to his office. He's taken the crafty interpretation that in order to qualify for the definition as written, an agency must operate entirely within the Executive branch, having the jurisdication and authority and resources solely to carry out Executive functions.

And the U.S. Constitution invests in the Vice President, the power to break tie votes in the Senate.

That's not to say I agree with the Vice President's legal position, but this is the situation as I understand it. And if I'm correct, that would mean everyone telling you to infer "Dick Cheney says he's not part of the Executive branch" [emph. mine again], is either trying to get you to believe a falsehood, or has been hornswaggled themselves.
6:24 PM
Anonymous said…
The Imperial Branch?
9:06 AM
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