Constitutional Law

Almost a "Saturday Night Massacre"

On Sunday and Monday, the Washington Post published two excerpts from Barton Gellman’s new book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The first part explores the role David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, played in quashing “unwelcome questions about warrantless domestic surveillance.”

The second part reveals that President Bush was not informed of the concerns his senior advisors had raised over the preceding months regarding the program, and that only a last minute meeting combined with imminent resignations by the acting Attorney General, the FBI Director, and other senior Justice Department officials forced the President to withdraw his opinion that overrode the Justice Department to declare the warrantless domestic surveillance program legal.

As ACSBlog reported last week, the Vice President is being sued to ensure that his office turns over all documents required under the Presidential Records Act.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on September 15, 2008 (boomark / email).