New Vice Presidential Power
Interesting...
If the Vice President has the power to unilaterally de-classify material it certainly takes the wind out of the sails of the Democrats, who have of late been calling for Cheney to resign over revelations that Libby was ordered to "leak" information by superiors.
As I've said before, there is hardly anything wrong about Libby "leaking" parts of the National Intelligence Estimate reports (parts of which are pretty frequently made public anyway) especially if the information "leaked" was de-classified by someone who had authority to do so. Like the President. Or, perhaps in this instance, the Vice President.
Near the end of the interview, Fox anchor Brit Hume brought up a controversy arising from the CIA-leak case, in which prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in court papers that former top Cheney aide Lewis Libby testified he had been authorized "by his superiors" to disclose information about the classified National Intelligence Estimate to members of the press. "Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?" Hume asked.
"There is an executive order to that effect," Cheney said.
"There is?"
"Yes."
"Have you done it?"
"Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order — "
"You ever done it unilaterally?"
"I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President."
Cheney was referring to Executive Order 13292, issued by President Bush on March 25, 2003, which dealt with the handling of classified material. That order was not an entirely new document but was, instead, an amendment to an earlier Executive Order, number 12958, issued by President Bill Clinton on April 17, 1995.
If the Vice President has the power to unilaterally de-classify material it certainly takes the wind out of the sails of the Democrats, who have of late been calling for Cheney to resign over revelations that Libby was ordered to "leak" information by superiors.
As I've said before, there is hardly anything wrong about Libby "leaking" parts of the National Intelligence Estimate reports (parts of which are pretty frequently made public anyway) especially if the information "leaked" was de-classified by someone who had authority to do so. Like the President. Or, perhaps in this instance, the Vice President.
