What Will Become of Dick Cheney's Vice Presidential Records?

[malaise]

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20100903.html
<snip>
A Vice President who openly encouraged and engaged in war crimes when in office, and who believes he is strengthening the presidency by defying the law, will do whatever he wants with his official records. As the law now stands, no one can force him to comply with the records-preservation law.

Cheney is not totally defiant, for he has acknowledged that some of his records relating to assignments given him by Bush are within the PRA provisions. But, based on his position during the CREW v. Cheney litigation, he obviously believes that other papers are not within the PRA's ambit -- notwithstanding the clear language of the law.

As Cheney's office stated during the litigation, "a Vice President has no functions unless they are specifically assigned to the Vice President by the President in the discharge of executive duties and responsibilities." Such records would thus fall with the PRA. But as Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted, David Addington, the Vice President Cheney's former counsel and chief of staff, testified to Congress that the Vice President's office "belongs to neither" the executive or legislative branch; rather, Addington claimed that the Vice President's office is "attached by the Constitution" to Congress. If Cheney really believes this, then he will claim that the PRA deals with presidential (not congressional) records, notwithstanding the express language of the law. Or he will come up with some other half-baked excuse.

Most importantly, because Congress is at present continuing to ignore the inability of the federal judiciary to enforce the PRA, Cheney can -- and no doubt will -- do whatever he wishes. While the Obama Administration is giving Cheney a pass on his war crimes, other nations are not, so it is very likely that Cheney's papers relating to his involvement in war crimes will simply disappear. Not only will no foreign tribunal ever get ahold of that information, but American history will never record it. Why Congress is not adding a few provisions to make the PRA actually enforceable utterly mystifies this observer.
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Bravo John Dean!!
Time for Action before the dick of a war criminal croaks.

[peace frog]

1. What records?

Try finding the most egregious of them now. Does anyone think that wiley creep Cheney hasn't already removed all threat to himself via records? If so, I have an outstanding value in bridge real estate I'd like to sell you.

[postulater]

2. Weren't they destroyed by a fire?

[Octafish]

15. Good point. The ones that weren't are protected because he's a Repuglikan.

Like his secret energy task force that drew up plans to hustle Iraq's oil before September 11 provided them cover needed to conflate Saddam and Osama bin Laden in the public "mind."

Now if Sneering Dick Cheney were a Democrat, like Bill Clinton, he'd have to turn over every single piece of paper and all his emails to Newt Gingrich's administrative assistant.

[Bitwit1234]

4. Correct, correct why do you think that big old

truck shredder went to his Mansion in southern Maryland. He shredded them all.

[Toots]

3. His shredders were working overtime

There are no records, hence his time will be recorded as a blank.

[malaise]

5. They're probably working all now

I have a feeling Dean knows the end is close.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. They will be stored in a secure location

for the 1,000,000 years.

[Historic NY]

7. Seize them they belong to the American taxpayer who employed him...

he got a check and benefits. If he contends those papers are outside government just what was he doing on our dime?

[Buns_of_Fire]

8. The records (or what's left of them) will be buried with him,

in his secure, undisclosed location, urine-resistant vault.

[brendan120678]

9. Has this issue never come up before?

I didn't read through the article, but does it say what usually happens to VP records?
Gore?
Quayle?
Bush?
Mondale?
etc. etc. etc.

[G_j]

10. what records?

:shrug:

[mimitabby]

13. the sheer enormity of the evil in them

is causing them to implode upon themselves and is turning into a black hole...

[bullwinkle428]

11. Fed to the sharks with laser beams on their heads.

[Hawkowl]

12. They will be tragically destroyed in a fire

Much the same as his chief of staff, Addington (Cheney's Cheney), had a fire at his house's library. Destroying virtually all his records.

[pipi_k]

14. They've been sent into space...twenty thousand years from now ...

they'll land on a distant planet whose inhabitants will decide that we must have all been fucking nuts and then they will thank whatever deity they worship that they never decided to pay us a friendly visit.

[political_Dem]

16. The papers will never be found. Cheney will skate unless there's another Deep Throat.

Besides all that, don't be surprised when you hear of Cheney's "associates" all of a sudden "dying of cancer" just like the people connected to the Kennedy assasination did.

I wish that someone would find something to put that man under the jail for a long time, but in reality Cheney probably is untouchable. :(

[malaise]

17. Remember Dean was an insider

The Dick must be close to death for Dean to raise this issue now.

[DailyGrind51]

18. That's what shredders are for!