Get a load of this malarky! --Laura, aka, whereabouts
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• Elana Schor


• guardian.co.uk,


• Tuesday April 29 2008


• Article history

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney
claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his
behaviour on the job.
The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel
came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David
Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his
involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo
Bay.
Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer
Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the
[congressional] committee's power of inquiry".
"Congress lacks
the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president
communicates in the performance of the vice president's official
duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president
communicate," Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.
The
exception claimed by Cheney's office recalls his attempt last year to
evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president's
office a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.
The
Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the
violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked
Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify.
Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.
However,
Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London, has
agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture
Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at
Guantanamo.
Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian earlier this month.
Two
witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John Ashcroft
and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that their
involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows
them to avoid appearing before Congress.
In letters to attorneys
representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down their arguments and
indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients did not testify at
his May 6 hearing.
"I am aware of no basis for the remarkable
claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunises an individual
from testifying before Congress," Conyers wrote.
Conyers, who
chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee, also
questioned the reasoning of Cheney's lawyer in a letter to Addington.
"It
is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise
to concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice
president's recommendations to the president," Conyers wrote.
"Especially
since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are
plentiful," he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture
on terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules
that allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a
specialised office within the justice department.