In 2001, shortly after his inauguration, Dick Cheney met with Dan Quayle, who had of course served in the same position eight years earlier. Quayle wanted to offer some advice, one vice president to another.
“Dick, you know, you’re going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you’re going to be doing all this political fundraising … you’ll be going to the funerals,” Quayle said. “We’ve all done it.”
Recalling the conversation, Quayle said Cheney “got that little smile,” before replying, “I have a different understanding with the president.”
The first of a four-part series in the Washington Post today, written by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, helps demonstrate just how true those comments were. Today’s profile helps document the scope and breadth of a Vice President with unprecedented (and largely unchecked) authority. Cheney wanted a “mandate that gave him access to ‘every table and every meeting,’ making his voice heard in ‘whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in,'” and, naturally, Bush gave his VP what he requested.
It’s hard to know which of the many jaw-dropping anecdotes to highlight, but Cheney’s work in establishing military commissions for detainees stood out for capturing all the characteristics of Cheney’s hyper-secretive, ruthless, legally-dubious style.
At the White House, Bellinger sent Rice a blunt — and, he thought, private — legal warning. The Cheney-Rumsfeld position would place the president indisputably in breach of international law and would undermine cooperation from allied governments. Faxes had been pouring in at the State Department since the order for military commissions was signed, with even British authorities warning that they could not hand over suspects if the U.S. government withdrew from accepted legal norms.
One lawyer in his office said that Bellinger was chagrined to learn, indirectly, that Cheney had read the confidential memo and “was concerned” about his advice. Thus Bellinger discovered an unannounced standing order: Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were “routed outside the formal process” to Cheney, too. The reverse did not apply.
Powell asked for a meeting with Bush. The same day, Jan. 25, 2002, Cheney’s office struck a preemptive blow. It appeared to come from Gonzales, a longtime Bush confidant whom the president nicknamed “Fredo.” Hours after Powell made his request, Gonzales signed his name to a memo that anticipated and undermined the State Department’s talking points. The true author has long been a subject of speculation, for reasons including its unorthodox format and a subtly mocking tone that is not a Gonzales hallmark.
A White House lawyer with direct knowledge said Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, wrote the memo. Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, and Gonzales sent it as “my judgment” to Bush. If Bush consulted Cheney after that, the vice president became a sounding board for advice he originated himself.
Cheney and his small team had, by design, excluded the Justice Department, the NSA, and the State Department to create the entire policy, which would also circumvent the federal judiciary.
The same thing happened with the NSA warrantless-domestic-search program.
Forbidden by federal law since 1978, the surveillance would soon be justified, in secret, as “incident to” the authority Congress had just granted. Yoo was already working on that memo, completing it on Sept. 25.
It was an extraordinary step, bypassing Congress and the courts, and its authors kept it secret from officials who were likely to object. Among the excluded was John B. Bellinger III, a man for whom Cheney’s attorney had “open contempt,” according to a senior government lawyer who saw them often. The eavesdropping program was directly within Bellinger’s purview as ranking national security lawyer in the White House, reporting to Rice. Addington had no line responsibility. But he had Cheney’s proxy, and more than once he accused Bellinger, to his face, of selling out presidential authority for good “public relations” or bureaucratic consensus.
Cheney and his “triumvirate” of lawyers (Addington, Flanigan and Gonzales) crafted the policy, to the exclusion of everyone else. When it came time for a congressional briefing, the chairmen and ranking minority members of the intelligence committees were summoned to the White House for a meeting with Cheney, not Bush, who would oversee “the portfolio for intelligence activities.”
As for the Discussion Group, borrowing a page from Stephen Colbert, the question is simple: Dick Cheney — scary, authoritarian U.S. leader or the scariest authoritarian U.S. leader?