This is what happens when you get a government run by rich lawyers.

FOCUS OF VP INQUIRY SHIFTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL

Congressional leaders who are investigating the refusal of Vice
President Cheney to comply with executive branch procedures for
oversight of classification and declassification activity yesterday
asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to account for his sluggish
handling of the issue.

Last January, J. William Leonard, the director of the Information
Security Oversight Office (ISOO), asked the Attorney General to
determine whether the Office of the Vice President is subject to
reporting requirements like other executive branch agencies, or not.

A reply is not optional. The executive states clearly that "The
Attorney General, upon request..., shall render an interpretation of
this order with respect to any question arising in the course of its
administration" (sec. 6.2b).

Yet no such reply has been forthcoming.

"Due to conflicting statements from your department, the status of your
review of this matter is unclear," wrote Reps. Henry Waxman, John
Conyers Jr., and William Lacy Clay in their letter to the Attorney
General. "More than six months (sic) have passed since Mr. Leonard's
letter to you, and the Information Security Oversight Office has
received no response to its inquiry."

The House letter asked Attorney General Gonzales to reply to a series
of questions regarding his review of the Vice President's status as a
classifier.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/h062707.pdf

The Congressmen cited a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel
reply to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of
American Scientists (first reported by Michael Isikoff in Newsweek this
week) indicating that "no documents" had been generated in response to
the ISOO inquiry.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/06/olc-foia.pdf

On the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Patrick Leahy extolled the FAS
request as a example of the utility of the Freedom of Information Act.

"Just this week, we witnessed the great value of FOIA in shedding light
on a controversial policy within the Office of the Vice President
regarding the handling of classified information, with news reports
that a FOIA request to the Justice Department first revealed that the
Attorney General may have delayed a review into the legality of this
troubling policy," Sen. Leahy said in a June 27 statement on the status
of the Open Government Act, which has been held up by opposition from a
Republican Senator.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/leahy062707.html

In a June 25 letter, Sen. Dick Durbin asked the Vice President to
comply with the requirements of the Executive Order "so that we will
not be compelled to take corrective action in our appropriations bill."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/durbin062507.pdf

ADDINGTON AND THE QUESTION OF INTENT

Vice Presidential Chief of Staff David Addington defended Dick Cheney's
refusal to submit to oversight by the Information Security Oversight
Office in a June 26 letter to Sen. John Kerry.

"The executive order on classified national security information --
Executive Order 12958 as amended in 2003 -- makes it clear that the
Vice President is treated like the President and distinguishes the two
of them from 'agencies'," he wrote.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/06/ovp062607.pdf

Mr. Addington's claim is demonstrably false.

By presidential order dated October 13, 1995, the President delegated
original classification authority to the Vice President under Executive
Order 12958, along with other officials in the executive office of the
President and various agency heads.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/oca.html

When the executive order was amended in 2003, that delegation of
classification authority to the Vice President was not rescinded or
modified. It remains in effect. Consequently, the Vice President's
authority is comparable to that of the Secretary of Defense or the
Secretary of State.

Furthermore, as ISOO director J. William Leonard explained in his
January 9, 2007 letter to the Attorney General, a "plain text reading"
of the order indicates that the Office of the Vice President is subject
to the order's requirements. He noted that the OVP is granted one
particular exemption, concerning the order's mandatory declassification
review provisions.

"This sole explicit reference for the purpose of exempting the OVP from
a provision of the Order supports an interpretation that the rest of the
Order does apply.... otherwise there would be no need for an exemption,"
Mr. Leonard flawlessly argued.

By contrast, reported Michael Abramowitz in the Washington Post (June
27), "Addington did not cite specific language in the executive order
supporting [his] view, and a Cheney spokeswoman could not point to such
language last night. But spokeswoman Lee Anne McBride said the intent of
the order, as expressed by White House officials in recent days, was
'not for the VP to be separated from the president on this reporting
requirement'."

The President could amend the executive order at a moment's notice to
exempt the Vice President from oversight. Or the Attorney General
could render an interpretation of the order that favors the Vice
President's position. But neither action has been taken.

Instead, the White House simply insists that the executive order does
not mean what a "plain text reading" says that it means. By doing so,
it degrades the machinery of government.