[THS] Cheney Lawyer: Congress Has No Authority Over Vice President

[Peter Webster]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042908B.shtml

Cheney Lawyer Claims Congress Has No Authority Over Vice President
    By Elana Schor
    The Guardian UK

    Tuesday 29 April 2008

    The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the
Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour 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.

    The exception claimed by Cheney's office recalls his attempt last year to
evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president's office
a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.

    The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework
for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked
Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus
far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

    However, Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London,
has agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture
Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at
Guantanamo.

    Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian
earlier this month.

    Two witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John
Ashcroft and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that
their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows them
to avoid appearing before Congress.

    In letters to attorneys representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down
their arguments and indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients
did not testify at his May 6 hearing.

    "I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil
litigation somehow immunises an individual from testifying before
Congress," Conyers wrote.

    Conyers, who chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee,
also questioned the reasoning of Cheney's lawyer in a letter to Addington.

    "It is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise to
concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice president's
recommendations to the president," Conyers wrote.

    "Especially since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are
plentiful," he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture on
terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules that
allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a specialised
office within the justice department.

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