Power play in D.C.
By Dave
September 15th, 2008 | Leave a comment
Washington Post writer Barton Gellman delves into a White House crisis in Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, published Tuesday. Gellman’s reporting reveals that Cheney was by far the most powerful vice president in history. In fact, the warrantless spying policy was actually written and housed in the vice president’s office.
During a legal insurrection among White House lawyers over the legality of such a program, President Bush was oblivious to any dissent over the program.
Gellman writes that Cheney nearly drove the presidency over a cliff during this fight.
A brief excerpt:
“Five government lawyers had gathered around a small conference table in the Justice Department command center. Four were expected. David S. Addington, counsel to Vice President Cheney, got wind of the meeting and invited himself.
“If Addington smelled revolt, he was not far wrong. Unwelcome questions about warrantless domestic surveillance had begun to find their voice.
“It is unlikely that the history of U.S. intelligence includes another operation conceived and supervised by the office of the vice president. White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had ‘no idea,’ he said, that the presidential orders were held in a vice presidential safe. An authoritative source said the staff secretariat, which kept a comprehensive inventory of presidential papers, classified and unclassified, possessed no record of these.”
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