WAXMAN to BUSH: Rove, Hadley, & others may have violated Exec Order 12598

[Terre]

I posted this diary on DailyKos yesterday, and thought I'd post it here. If nothing else but to share Representative Waxman's letter to Bush yesterday, and to point to links regarding the classification of information. My apologies for the length, but I had to use pics, instead of type. So, without further ado:

Rep. Henry Waxman wrote a 6-page letter to President Bush today, and sticks it to him, point after marvelous point, and he makes heavy use of Murray Waas' article: Insulating Bush

You can download the letter at Waxman's site in a scanned PDF form, along with the mentioned CRS report, OR relatively quickly you can view the letter image pages at TalkingPointsMemo.

On to what I think are the 2 important gists of his letter:

Here is an image from a portion on page 2 of that letter, where Rep Waxman brings up the issue of Cheney's authority to "declassify", and cites the CRS:

and now to what I believe are the money quotes on pages 4 and 5:

Executive Order 12958
Some snippets below from the Executive Order which Waxman refers to in his letter.  I added the first one, because it seems to me that if Bush authorized the disclosure (or declassification), he just can't do it willy-nilly.  It seems to me that the public, or affected agencies, need to be made aware of the declassification FIRST, at the very least.

(c) Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information.

Sec. 1.8. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
(a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of national security.

Under "Safeguarding" are the following General Restrictions, and I simply don't think that Judith Miller meets any of the criteria - though Scooter may beg to differ on #3:

Sec. 4.2. General Restrictions on Access. (a) A person may have access to classified information provided that:
(1) a favorable determination of eligibility for access has been made by an agency head or the agency head's designee;
(2) the person has signed an approved nondisclosure agreement; and
(3) the person has a need-to-know the information.

Bush amended EO 12958 with Executive Order 13292 on March 25, 2003.  There are changes - somewhere. Exactly what I'm not sure because I didn't compare it line-by-line.  However, I saw no changes to the parts I quoted.

So anyway, I believe as Waxman does, that Bush has YET AGAIN violated the law.  And I also believe as he does, that this letter will simply be buried along with all the other letters he's written to Bush.

An addemdum to the above. I'm hearing a bit more (Today Show with Matt Lauer and Tweety this morning) about Bush's so-called 'declassification' or 'disclosure', and it hasn't been very favorable.

BWAHAHAHAHAA!  :evilgrin:

[hwmnbn]

1. Yep, I watched that portion of the Today show .....

When asked how serious this matter is on a scale of 1 to 10, Tweety said it is approaching 10. He did not downplay it.

He figured the White House will have no comment because it is an "ongoing investigation," but he said the chimp and Cheney have to address this issue in detail before the american people.

[Terre]

3. Gotta watch Hardball tonight

even though I swore off him after his disgusting pre-interview with Delay.

Just saw a commercial for Hardball, and the end of it, it said something like:

...What could be the BIGGEST SCANDAL of the White House!

Don't think ole Bushie is gonna get a Friday dump this time!

:)

[blm]

2. Waxman - another OPEN BOOK GOVERNMENT Democrat I am proud to support.

Blessed are the anticorruption seekers.