VICE PRESIDENT MAKES SECRECY POLICY A JOKE (LITERALLY)

The arcane details of national security classification policy became
the stuff of late night comedy as White House officials struggled to
justify the peculiar refusal of Vice President Dick Cheney to comply
with the oversight requirements established by President Bush's
executive order on classification.

For two successive days, the White House press briefing was dominated
by incredulous reporters who wondered how the Vice President could
claim that he both was and was not part of the executive branch; why he
complied with oversight reporting requirements in 2001 and 2002, and why
he then ceased to comply; and how the Vice President's behavior can be
consistent with the executive order when the Administration's own
Information Security Oversight Office says that it is not.

"I'm not a legal scholar," said an exasperated Dana Perino, the White
House spokeswoman. "I'm not opining on his argument that his office is
making."

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/06/wh062507.html

The story became certifiably big news last night when it was the
subject of a five minute satirical segment on The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart (where I had a microsecond cameo). See "Non-Executive
Decision," June 25, 2007, under "most recent videos":

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml

The Justice Department had said that the classification policy dispute
was "under review" since Information Security Oversight Office director
J. William Leonard asked the Attorney General in January 2007 to resolve
the matter. But in response to a Freedom of Information Act request,
the Justice Department revealed that no documents whatsoever had been
generated by the purported review.

See "A New Cheney-Gonzales Mystery" by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, July
2:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19391241/site/newsweek/

Congressional leaders are stirring the pot, warning that the Office of
Vice President could suffer budget penalties if it does not comply with
routine oversight procedures. See "Secrecy May Cost Cheney, Dems Warn"
by Elana Schor and Mike Soraghan, The Hill, June 26:

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/secrecy-may-cost-cheney-dems-warn-2007-06-26.html

To recap: The internal executive branch conflict over the Vice
President's non-compliance with the executive order was triggered by a
formal complaint filed with the Information Security Oversight Office
in May 2006 by the Federation of American Scientists (following a
report in the Chicago Tribune by Mike Silva).

The FAS complaint was accepted by ISOO Director William Leonard, and
was forwarded to the Attorney General in January with his request for
an official interpretation of the executive order. There the matter
lay for five months until Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the
House Oversight Committee, raised the issue to stratospheric heights
last week with a letter to the Vice President questioning his Office's
conduct.

The Diane Rehm Show on National Public Radio devoted an hour to the
topic yesterday with Congressman Waxman, Peter Baker of the Washington
Post, former Justice Department lawyer David Rivkin, and myself. See
"The Executive Branch and Classified Information," June 25:

http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/06/25.php

The controversy is playing out against the backdrop of a massive
four-part series in the Washington Post on Vice President Cheney's role
and conduct written by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker. The story had been
under development for many months and Ms. Becker has since left the Post
to go work for the New York Times. In a weird and probably
unprecedented coincidence, she had a byline in front page stories in
both the Washington Post and the New York Times on June 25.