Gibbs: Bush tied CIA's hands on Cheney request

[kpete]

Source: Politico

May 14, 2009
Categories: Interrogations
Gibbs: Bush tied CIA's hands on Cheney request

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is blaming an executive order signed by President George W. Bush for the denial of Vice President Dick Cheney's request for declassification of two memos he says show that important intelligence was obtained from aggressive interrogation techniques some have described as torture.

"The CIA is the agency that has jurisdiction over this," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama returned from a trip to Arizona and New Mexico. "They made the decision, in all honesty, based on an executive order from the Bush administration, which under the type of request that Vice President Cheney made, precludes these being declassified because they're part of ongoing litigation. The executive order updated in the Bush administration precludes their release."

The CIA's denial cited two pending court cases seeking the Central Intelligence Agency memos in question. A spokesman for Cheney has said that the former vice president plans to appeal the refusal.

While Gibbs is correct that the order exempts the documents from automatic or "mandatory" review while litigation is pending, there is no legal obstacle to the Obama administration declassifying the material either on their own initiative or in response to the litigation. Indeed, that is precisely what happened with the four Office of Legal Counsel memos about the interrogation program that were released back on April 16.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0509/Gibbs_B...

---

My colleague Glenn Thrush has the details here on the denial of Cheney's request.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0509/CIA_reje...

[LakeSamish706]

1. The question is Who the fuk cares about what Cheney wants? Come on....

you guys we have much more important things to concentrate our efforts on than Dick Cheney...

[No Elephants]

10. Are you criticizing Politico for writing about Cheney, or are you equating

posting at DU with making an effort?

If the former, I suggest you email Politico because exhorting Politico here is unlikely to come to Politico's attention.

If you are equating posting at DU with making an effort, posting at DU is simply a relatively inactive way of passing time, not a movement of any kind. Nothing's wrong with that, but don't think of it as more than it is. Tt doesn't matter a whit in real life if we post about Cheney or post about another topic. People indulge themselves by posting on what they feel like posting on. That's the whole (and only point) of a message board.

[Sanity Claws]

2. I love it!

Obama can cite a Bush executive order as the reason the CIA can't declassify materials Cheney wants.

Haha.

[stillcool]

3. I wonder what the two cases are?

[dgibby]

4. You can't make this shit up!

[santamargarita]

5. Bush is too drunk to know what day it is...Politico is full of shit!

[lovuian]

6. Executive Order ...Bush isn't President

anymore is he?

[pnwmom]

7. I thought Obama revoked Bush's Executive Orders. I hope

the CIA isn't deciding to follow them anyway.

[LaPera]

8. Bullshit, there's no such documents clearing Cheney, it's all bullshit so Cheney can say, see the

documents (bullshit) are there, but he can't get the documents...get real, the CIA is covering for Cheney, this way they can protect Cheney and Cheney in return can protect the CIA by not having the non-existent bullshit "documents"...Cheney is just so full of shit!

[No Elephants]

11. Of course there are. He ordered them prepared himself. That's how he knows they exist.

[sofa king]

14. That, apparently, is his specialty.

According only to snippets of overheard conversation and the occasional side-comment here and there on the Internet, what Cheney really excelled at was manipulation of the bureaucracy, the file systems, and documentary procedure. He knew from the beginning what to pitch, what to keep, and what to never acknowledge at all.

The problem is that literally thousands of less adept people worked for him, some criminals, one or two no doubt honest, and a whole lot of scared shitless people in the middle. I'm still waiting for the obligatory yet always inexplicable Dorothy Hunt moment.

By my reckoning, a lot of people are going to have to die unexpectedly and suspiciously, real damned quick. There's so much iceberg below the waterline that you wouldn't believe it.

Edit: It would appear that one fellow has just been "suicided." But they haven't stepped up to Americans yet, that I have seen.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/05/12/libya.al...

[L. Coyote]

9. Woo hoo = "because they're part of ongoing litigation" Lots of those it seems.

More every day, I suspect!!

[No Elephants]

12. Two kinds of documents from the Bush Era. Subject to ongoing litigation or shredded long ago.

[No Elephants]

13. Where was Politico's brilliant analysis of no legal obstacle to declassification

when Bushco was classifying everything up to and including yesterday's newspaper?

I am so sick of partisan hacks. If you're going to be that partisan, at least be less blatant. Have a little finesse, FFS.