Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information. As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald established, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, your former Chief of Staff, leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to several reporters in June 2003. Mr. Libby was convicted in March of perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements for lying to a grand jury and to FBI agents in order to conceal his role in the leaking of this information.
The prosecution of Mr. Libby also revealed that you apparently misused the declassification process for political reasons. In July 2003, you reportedly instructed Mr. Libby to leak to the media portions of an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein’s purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Your selective declassification of this information was apparently made outside the formal declassification process and done as part of a damage-control effort you undertook to defend the Administration’s rationale for going to war in Iraq.
In a separate incident, Leandro Aragoncillo, a former aide in your office, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to passing classified information to plotters allegedly trying to overthrow Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Mr. Aragoncillo reportedly disclosed numerous secret and top secret documents to Philippine officials over several years while working in your office.
Given this record, serious questions can be raised about both the legality and the advisability of exempting your office from the rules that apply to all other executive branch officials.
Anyway, since the ISOO has been completely stymied by the OVP from simply doing their job, they've tried writing twoseperate letters to VP Counsel David Addington - only to be ignored.
They've gone to the Attorney General, as is authorized by the relevant EO's, asking him to get the Vice President to comply with the President.
(Is it just me or is it totally surreal to actually type those words?)
And you can just be rest assured that Gonzo got right on that.
Yeah, uh huh... any minute now after he's done Saving the Kids and covering his own well exposed Behind.
Anyway, apparently because of the letter to Fredo - ole Shooter is kinda pissed. He now says that the Presidential Executive Order should be amended again so that the ISOO and the National Archives no longer have the option of appealing disputes to the AG.
Isn't it great that whenever you get caught in the midst of Treason, uh Completely Fucking Up on matters of National Security er...a minor clerical error where you forgot that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden really aren't the same guy, that you can just send a paper airplane over to the stuttering goober in weird round office down the hall and have him change the rules of the game for you?
(But wait - I thought Cheney wasn't in the "Executive Branch?")
Born and Bred in South Central LA. I spent 12 years working in the IT Dept. for federal contractor Northrop-Grumman on classified and high security projects such as the B2 Bomber. After Northrop I became an IT consultant with the state of California in Sacramento and worked on projects with the Dept of Consumer Affairs and CalTrans, as well as projects for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. Now living in Los Angeles on my own independant web design company.
