[Infowarrior] - Cheney claims power to decide his own case

[Richard Forno]

(We saw this coming a mile away.....-rf)

Cheney claims power to decide his own case
John Byrne
Published: Friday December 19, 2008

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Cheney_I_am_law_1219.html

I am the law.

That's the message Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to send in a  
little-noticed court filing last week, in which his lawyers asserted  
that the vice president alone has the authority to determine which  
records are turned over to the National Archives after he leaves  
office. But the law exempts "personal and partisan" records, which  
Cheney's lawyers said he will be the sole decider upon.

"The vice president alone may determine what constitutes vice  
presidential records or personal records, how his records will be  
created, maintained, managed and disposed, and are all actions that  
are committed to his discretion by law," according to a filing by  
Cheney's office with the court hearing the case Dec. 8, noted by the  
AP's Pamela Hess.

"National Archives officials have said records of Cheney's dealings  
with the Republican National Committee would not require preservation  
under the law," Hess notes. "As of November, it had not made a final  
determination on the status of Cheney's records produced when he acts  
as president of the Senate, which he says are exempt."

Steven Aftergood, government secrecy expert and editor of the blog,  
Secrecy News, told Hess the law is unclear as to who is supposed to  
determine what records can be kept as private property.

"Decisions that are made in the next couple of weeks may prove  
irrevocable," he said. "If records are held from the archivist now  
they may never be recovered."

Cheney was ordered to preserve all records in September while the case  
progressed.

Citizens for Ethics has tangled with the White House for years. Last  
year, they took issue with the White House's announcement that they'd  
lost more than five million emails generated between March 2003 and  
October 2005.

"It’s clear that the White House has been willfully violating the law,  
the only question now is to what extent?" CREW executive director  
Melanie Sloan wrote. "The ever changing excuses offered by the  
administration – that they didn’t want to violate the Hatch Act, that  
staff wasn’t clear on the law – are patently ridiculous. Very  
convenient that embarrassing – and potentially incriminating – emails  
have gone missing. It’s the Nixon White House all over again."