Is Dick Cheney beyond the Constitution? Or just beyond Congress?

Texas Monthly magazine

Dick Cheney is often caricatured, and often in court defending the prerogatives of his office.

Featured Topic | Posted 17 weeks 20 hours ago

Is Dick Cheney beyond the Constitution? Or just beyond Congress?

Vice President Dick Cheney has had a knack for stirring up constitutional controversy. Cheney asserted executive privilege and he's also argued that the vice president's office is outside the executive branch. This week, Cheney's attorney delivered a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman John Conyers, claiming Congress lacks any authority to examine his behavior on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the [congressional] committee's power of inquiry."

"Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president's official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate," Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

Is the vice president's office a "fourth branch" of government? Should the vice president be covered by executive privilege? Or is Cheney asserting power he doesn't have?

Ben likes: The executive's privilege

National Review

Typically, disputes like those over the U.S. attorney and terrorist-surveillance program are worked out by compromise. If a president wants to protect his prerogatives, he also wants to preserve a working relationship with Congress. But this particular relationship can’t be saved. Comity is impossible with a Congress bent on doing all it can to destroy what remains of the Bush administration. In the matter of the U.S. attorneys, the administration has provided Congress 8,500 pages of documents and numerous officials and former officials have testified. This isn’t enough for a Congress that won’t stop until it has run-down every outlandish conspiracy theory about the firings that -- even if clumsy and ill-advised -- were perfectly within Bush’s power to make.

And so, the administration was justified in saying both, "no more," and "see you in court." There, it can hope to get a decision that strengthens the executive’s ability to protect its deliberations for a long time to come.

Joel likes: Cheney and the Constitution

Aziz Huq/The Nation

For Cheney to be pushing the envelope on executive power is especially ironic, given the original constitutional status of the vice presidency: That office is a vestigial afterthought tacked on to the Constitution toward the end of the 1787 Constitutional Convention to solve a gaggle of unrelated problems. And it quickly proved more trouble than it was worth.

The vice presidency, in short, was never intended as an independent center of constitutional power--let alone home of a shadow EPA (the rather wonderfully named White House Council on Environmental Quality); the secret architect of national energy policy; and the shameful global detention and torture policies--including the wretched military commission system.

Perhaps we do need to start thinking about why perhaps the most powerful office in the country is not on the top of a ballot, and why its powers are not defined -- or circumscribed -- by any law or constitutional provision. It's long past time for Congress to take this on. Past legislation has further provided clear channels of responsibility, particularly on military matters. It would be a good debate to have before the 2008 election, when Cheney will start opening the envelopes.

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Submitted on May 2nd, 2008 by rom12921

what if Cheney has $.
If he is "...personally profitting off the Iraq war through his defense industries cronies..." why didn't the Democrats use this eveidence against Bush/Cheney in 2006. Unless you have some evidence, take your own advice and quit whining.

"We all know..." You know no such thing.

"To think this man is using our brave and idealistic troops for his own gain is disgusting and rotten to the core." To think you think this and slander the vice President of the Untied States is rotten and disgusting to the core.

Moose, FYI the eternal judgement job is already taken.

Cheney is evil incarnate

Submitted on May 2nd, 2008 by Bull Moose

I believe former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil when he quoted Cheney as stating during a discussion on the second round of tax cuts,"but Paul,it's our due".

Here is a multi-millionaire, already personally profitting off the Iraq war through his defense industries cronies, whining about his due.

We all know when this twisted man leaves office, he will triple dip back into private defense corporations as a paid consultant, thus providing a conduit for repayment of favors from his Military Industrial Complex buddies.

To think this man is using our brave and idealistic troops for his own gain is disgusting and rotten to the core. Mangled flesh,dead soldiers,innocent civilians burned and maimed, and for what? Cheney's DUE.

If people like Bush and Cheney, and the rest of the war mongering chickenhawks, are indicative of folks worthy of God's Heaven, then i sure do not want any part of that Heaven.

chaney

Submitted on May 2nd, 2008 by Anonymous

I feel everyone working in government needs to be available for oversight.
They are, after all, supposed to be working for the American people. Hiding behind fears of confidential information is getting old. Members of congress are privy to much high level classified information. I think Chaney has sold out the American people for quite sometime and is afraid of what Congressional oversight might reveal.

Chney and the Constitution

Submitted on May 1st, 2008 by Missafiss

Where have you been for almost 8 years Cheney has been the president of the USA. Maybe not in offical name but in power were it counts.
It's been a terrible farce that the U.S. and the World has had to endure. It will take many years to recover from their cancerous infection.
I am sure they will all retire to Switzaland with their zillions of petro dollars dreaming of
World conquest.

Re: I wonder if Republicans...

Submitted on May 1st, 2008 by Ben

"Are they going to want Democrats to have wiretapping, torture, and immunity from investigation privileges too?"

Of course not. But your memory is too short. The hated Patriot Act did not spring fully formed from the brow of John Ashcroft. The policy wish list dated to the Clinton Administration. Echelon and Carnivore -- heard of those? -- were Clinton administration programs, too. Of course, the George H.W. Bush Administration did a great deal to expand the surveillance state under the auspices of the drug war.

Republicans come in different shapes and sizes. Principled conservatives don't like big government, regardless of who's occupying the Oval Office. That's why conservatives are accustomed to disappointment.

Re: Dick Cheney

Submitted on May 1st, 2008 by Ben

"Should" and "will" are very different things. But Bush and Cheney won't be impeached now or ever. Especially not with eight months left in the term. A lust for vengeance should not blind you -- or anyone -- to the truth of the matter.

I wonder if Republicans want the Dems to have the same power?

Submitted on May 1st, 2008 by Anonymous

Republicans seem to be okay with a huge government power grab these days. Not only is it against the basic principles of the founding of the Republican party, they are going to be VERY SORRY when the election in 2008 goes for Obama/Clinton. Are they going to want Democrats to have wiretapping, torture, and immunity from investigation privileges too?