Fourthbranch Strikes Again

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Washington:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s office on Monday responded separately from the White House to a Senate subpoena for documents on warrantless wiretapping and resurrected the controversial contention that Cheney is not part of the executive branch.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) set Monday’s subpoena deadline after granting an extension request by the White House. Presidential counsel Fred Fielding, as expected, told Leahy in a letter that a second delay, until after Labor Day, would help Congress and the administration “expeditiously seek a means of accommodation that will negate the need for an assertion of executive privilege.”

But the response from the vice president was more surprising, because the White House was believed to have abandoned the argument that Cheney is a hybrid entity with both executive and legislative powers.

The press oughta know by now that zombie conservative lies never die. It doesn't matter that the Fourthbranch argument has been openly laughed at by every serious scholar of the Constitution; Cheney SAID it, making it true to Cheney and every lawyer in the White House.

This revelation came as part of another empty threat of a press conference by a Democratic leader.

During a press conference this afternoon, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that the White House had still not responded to the committee's subpoena for documents relating to the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance program. "Time is up," Leahy said, "we've waited long enough." He went on to say, however, that he remained open to cooperating with the White House for the production of the documents: "I prefer cooperation to contempt." But if the administration has still not responded to the subpoena by September when Congress returns from recess, he said that he would pursue contempt proceedings in the committee "if that's what it takes."

Shorter Patrick Leahy: "I really mean it this time!"

That will have approximately zero impact within the White House and the OVP. I mean, this is an executive branch that feels they can tell the Congress what to do... and of course the worst part is that Congress listens, making this learned behavior.

Leahy said that the administration’s stonewalling amounted to “contempt of the valid order of the Congress,” and pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the program’s legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:

In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation of powers, but it seemed to work at that time.

When the Congress slavishly listens to anything you say for 6 straight years, I imagine it would be kind of hard to believe that they would disobey you on anything. Which is all the more reinforced by the opposition party's fecklessness.

Sen. Leahy should know that we'd have his back in a contempt proceeding, which is absolutely warranted by the facts. I do understand that it's also probably what the White House wants, for both political reasons and the fact that the courts move at a snail's pace and this would drag out until the end of the term.