{"id":13419,"date":"2008-12-20T21:39:21","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T04:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/12\/20\/the-public-record-is-whatever-i-say-the-public-record-is.html"},"modified":"2008-12-20T21:39:21","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T04:39:21","slug":"the_public_record_is_what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/20\/the_public_record_is_what.html","title":{"rendered":"“The public record is whatever I say the public record is”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s nice when you can decide what level of accountability you will be held to, isn’t it? After all, that’s the hallmark of the “unitary executive.”<\/p>\n

\n

Dick Cheney’s lawyers are asserting that the vice president alone has the authority to determine which records, if any, from his tenure will be handed over to the National Archives when he leaves office in January.<\/p>\n

That claim is in federal court documents asking that a lawsuit over the records be dismissed. Cheney leaves office Jan. 20, potentially taking with him millions of records that might otherwise become public record.<\/p>\n

”The vice president alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records, how his records will be created, maintained, managed and disposed, and are all actions that are committed to his discretion by law,” according to a court filing by Cheney’s office with the U.S. District Court on Dec. 8.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The point under contention is the Presidential Records Act of 1978. I don’t think George W. Bush issued a signing statement on that one, but …<\/p>\n

\n

he 1978 Presidential Records Act requires all presidential and vice presidential records to be transferred to the National Archives immediately upon the end of the president’s last term of office and gives the archivist responsibility to preserve and control access to presidential records. The law ended the tradition of private ownership of presidential papers, opening White House records to the public and historians.<\/p>\n

But the law carves out exceptions for personal or purely partisan records.<\/p>\n

National Archives officials have said records of Cheney’s dealings with the Republican National Committee<\/a> would not require preservation under the law. As of November, it had not made a final determination on the status of Cheney’s records produced when he acts as president of the Senate, which he says are exempt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right. That’s the whole “The VP’s office is executive when it’s convenient, and legislative when convenient, and f**k you when my idea of convenience doesn’t match yours” theme of the Cheney vice-presidency.<\/p>\n

\n

But the law is unclear on how disagreements will be decided about the preservation of disputed records, said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists.<\/p>\n

”Decisions that are made in the next couple of weeks may prove irrevocable. If records are held from the archivist now they may never be recovered,” Aftergood said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Precisely what VP Cheney and his legal team are hoping for.<\/p>\n

The arrogance and chutzpah are such that it would make a convincing case for some sort of judgmental afterlife simply to comfort oneself with an image of Cheney being poked with pitch forks for a millennium or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s nice when you can decide what level of accountability you will be held to, isn’t it? After all, that’s the hallmark of the “unitary executive.” Dick Cheney’s lawyers are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135022,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/09\/well-president-means-not-illegal.html","url_meta":{"origin":13419,"position":0},"title":"“Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Oct-17 3:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That was Nixon's comment to David Frost\u00a0, and seems to be the Justice Department's response to civil suits raised regarding the Trump administration hypothetically destroying records that it's required by law to retain. 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