1 Boring Old Man

“Protecting” President Cheney, Too
By: emptywheel
July 21, 2009

In today’s second installment on ways American taxpayers are wasting money to protect Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Josh Gerstein has a report on today’s hearing on CREW’s FOIA of Cheney’s interview in the CIA Leak Case. And DOJ is unabashedly making the argument that it should not release Dick Cheney’s interview because it might embarrrass him.

^{Smith said the Justice Department’s view was that a delay of five to ten years was appropriate, marked from the time the official or his or her administration left office. “It’s a judgment call,” Smith acknowledged. Smith suggested that such a delay would make it more likely that the information was used for historical purposes and not for political embarrassment. “The distinction is between releasing it for historical view and releasing it into the political fray,” Smith said.}

Funny, DOJ claimed it was arguing for the longer-than-statutes-of-limitation delay because of concerns that future Vice Presidents wouldn’t cooperate willingly with investigations. As time goes on an their arguments look shittier and shittier, I guess, they become more and more truthful. Thus their invention of a new FOIA embarrassment exemption. It sounds like Emmet Sullivan is not buying that argument–though he is also unwilling to just order the release of the interview without giving Obama’s DOJ an opportunity to waste more money protecting Cheney from embarrassment.

^{As the hearing concluded, Sullivan said he thought Congress had drawn a “bright line” with language in the Freedom of Information Act that generally exempts information about pending investigations from disclosure, but not closed probes, like the CIA leak case. He also said he would stay any ruling so the government could appeal before he released any documents.}

President Obama? Attorney General Holder? This nonsense has gone on long enough. As I noted, Cheney’s participation in this probe is proof enough that the investigative concerns are bunk. It really is high time to stop wasting money preventing taxpayers from learning what Cheney did in our name.

^{And you know what? They said something here that we are trying to put a cloud on the Vice President. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week. He wrote those columns. He had those meetings. He sent Libby off to Judith Miller at the St. Regis hotel. At that meeting, the two hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because a defendant has obstructed justice and lied about what happened. Did he come in straight and say what really happened? He came in and said, told the grand jury, I don’t remember anything. I remember learning about the wife. I learned it from Russert as if it were new. I was sitting around thinking I don’t even know if Wilson’s married. How do we know he has a wife? He’s put the doubt into whatever happened that week, whatever is going on between the Vice President and the defendant, that cloud was there. That’s not something that we put there. That cloud is something that we just can’t pretend isn’t there.}