http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobby/report.aspx?aid=760November 16, 2005 — Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered. . . .
Instead of making disclosures like most of the White House, Cheney's office since March 2002 has periodically responded to OGE inquiries by stating that it is not obligated to file such disclosure forms for travel funded by non-federal sources.
The letters were signed by then-Counsel to the Vice President David Addington, who two weeks ago was named Cheney's chief of staff, replacing indicted aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Addington also reportedly helped write a memo validating the use of torture or similar techniques on terrorism suspects abroad that came to light during the attorney general confirmation process of Gonzales, Bush's former counsel.
In the letters to the Office of Government Ethics, Addington writes that the Office of the Vice President is not classified as an agency of the executive branch and is therefore not required to issue reports on travel, lodging and related expenses funded by non-federal sources. The letters go on to say that neither the vice president nor his staff had accepted any non-federal payments for travel during the period, and that the office is making that limited disclosure as "a matter of comity."
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9888.htmlFebruary 09, 2007
On Monday, we talked about the Office of the Vice President refusing to cooperate with a government directory known as the “Plum Book,” which lists government employees. Federal agencies have to comply by listing staffers in the directory, but Dick Cheney’s office claimed an exemption for itself, arguing that the “Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch.”
In other words, employees of the three branches of the federal government have to give staff lists for the Plum Book, but the OVP apparently believes it’s not part any of the three branches. At the risk of sounding overdramatic, it’s one of those horrifying arguments that makes me worry about the integrity of our constitutional system.