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Five decades ago this nation was
undergoing one the most pivotal battles over rights and powers in our
history. At the center of this campaign was the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) which was expanded upon by Senator Joseph
McCarthy in the early 1950’s. The topic was red-baiting, and the nation
was spell-bound by the scope of the ‘investigations’ which were little
more than a sanctioned witch-hunt for communists within the government and
Hollywood.
Richard Nixon was one of the committee’s attorney’s, behind the
scenes, while Ronald Reagan, as president of the Screen Actor’s Guild,
was the Committee’s man in Hollywood who played a major role in
selecting who ought to be questioned before the committee. Through their
‘work’ these two men went on to become future presidents of the United
States. The rein of Joe McCarthy finally came to an end, but not before
‘Blacklisting’ had become part of the public vernacular, just as
‘censorship’ became publicly acceptable under ‘certain
circumstances. It was there here that the specter of an increased
executive power first began to gaze upon an expanded role for the office
of the presidency.
Cheney’s role began under Gerald R. Ford, when he and Rumsfeld first
made their places within government felt. Over the intervening years there
were many continuing challenges to the expanded power of the presidency,
most of which were turned back: until 911 changed the entire nature of
this arbitrary discussion. In between Newt Gingrich polarized the congress
and set up the mindset of what is still in effect today: a government with
an entrenched Congress that remains hostage to the illusory executive
prerogatives, of dubious constitutional standing.
Until George W. Bush took control under the fists of Dick Cheney and the
Crazies, no real threat of this presidential coup was even remotely close
to an actual takeover of this government. This is where “Cheney’s
Law” entered into the record books and when the United States ceased to
be a Republic and became a Dictatorship of one branch of the
government – in effect the only branch of this government. Because at the
core of Cheney’s Law is the belief that because of 911 the United States
must now be ‘a government of men not laws.’
Many months before 911, the White House began to spy on US citizens,
illegally.
“Now, as the White House appears ready to ignore subpoenas in the
investigations over wiretapping and U.S. attorney firings, FRONTLINE
examines the battle over the power of the presidency and Cheney's way of
looking at the Constitution.
"The vice president believes that Congress has very few powers to
actually constrain the president and the executive branch," former
Justice Department attorney Marty Lederman tells FRONTLINE. "He
believes the president should have the final word -- indeed the only word
-- on all matters within the executive branch."
After Sept. 11, Cheney and Addington were determined to implement their
vision -- in secret. The vice president and his counsel found an ally in
John Yoo, a lawyer at the Justice Department's extraordinarily powerful
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). In concert with Addington, Yoo wrote
memoranda authorizing the president to act with unparalleled authority.
"Through interviews with key administration figures, Cheney's Law
documents the bruising bureaucratic battles between a group of
conservative Justice Department lawyers and the Office of the Vice
President over the legal foundation for the most closely guarded programs
in the war on terror," says FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk. This is
Kirk's 10th documentary about the Bush administration's policies since
9/11.
In his most extensive television interview since leaving the Justice
Department, former Assistant Attorney General Jack L. Goldsmith describes
his initial days at the OLC in the fall of 2003 as he learned about the
government's most secret and controversial covert operations. Goldsmith
was shocked by the administration's secret assertion of unlimited power.
"There were extravagant and unnecessary claims of presidential power
that were wildly overbroad to the tasks at hand," Goldsmith says.
"I had a whole flurry of emotions. My first one was disbelief that
programs of this importance could be supported by legal opinions that were
this flawed. My second was the realization that I would have a very, very
hard time standing by these opinions if pressed. My third was the sinking
feeling, what was I going to do if I was pressed about reaffirming these
opinions?"
As Goldsmith began to question his colleagues' claims that the
administration could ignore domestic laws and international treaties, he
began to clash with Cheney's office. According to Goldsmith, Addington
warned him, "If you rule that way, the blood of the 100,000 people
who die in the next attack will be on your hands."
Goldsmith's battles with Cheney culminated in a now-famous hospital-room confrontation at Attorney General John Ashcroft's bedside. Goldsmith
watched as White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy
Card pleaded with Ashcroft to overrule the department's finding that a
domestic surveillance program was illegal. Ashcroft rebuffed the White
House, and as many as 30 department lawyers threatened to resign. The
president relented.
But Goldsmith's victory was temporary, and Cheney's Law continues the
story after the hospital-room standoff. At the Justice Department, White
House Counsel Gonzales was named attorney general and tasked with
reasserting White House control. On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied Congress
for broad authorizations for the eavesdropping program and for approval of
the administration's system for trying suspected terrorists by military
tribunals.
As the White House and Congress continue to face off over executive
privilege, the terrorist surveillance program, and the firing of U.S.
attorneys, FRONTLINE tells the story of what's formed the views of the man
behind what some view as the most ambitious project to reshape the power
of the president in American history.” (1)
Throughout this administration numerous clashes between the congress and
the president have been threatened, and subpoenas have been used to obtain
critically needed information – yet the information has not been
provided, under threat of the possibility of Executive Privilege. The
public is still waiting for the congress and the courts to show some
backbone and demand the emails and the documents requested without further
delay. Yet from Washington there is only silence amid ‘business as
usual.’
There is no more important business in this nation today than to prosecute
violations of law by the executive or by any other branch of government,
to the fullest extent of the law. As the video makes abundantly clear,
there are virtually thousands of instances where the president has broken
if not shattered the laws of this Republic, and still after almost seven
years the congress is unwilling to do anything of substance about any of
these major crimes against the constitution and the people of the United
States.
This coup has succeeded in full view of the American public and the world.
Congress must forego vacations and dedicate itself to removing these
criminal actions from the books, along with all those who are responsible
for having created this entirely ‘other world’ of powers and practices
that are utterly abhorrent to the nation and the world, in addition to
being illegal by any real study of the laws that have been massively
by-passed.
“The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of
our Constitution . . . what the rest of the world looked at for the last
200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world-in checks
and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights
protected
from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary,
the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many presidents
before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in
the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.
All these violations were impeachable had they been found out at the
time but in nearly every case the violations were not found out until
[the president was] out of office so we didn't have the exact challenge that
we have today.
That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson,
Kennedy and others. They were impeachable. They weren't found out in time. But
I think it was not their intention, in the crisis situations that they
felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.
It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that
comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have
had precisely that in mind since at least the early 1970s. Not just since
1992, not since 2001, but [they] have believed in executive government, single-branch government under an executive president-elected or
not-with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.” (2)
This is all been made very clear in the FRONTLINE video ~ so the
“facts” involved herein are a matter of public record, and have been
for most of the nearly seven years of this administration.
Cheney’s Law must be revoked and silenced forever, along with its author
and chief architect that should stand trial for his crimes along with the
entire cadre of his henchmen in this attempted theft of this nation!
Jim Kirwan
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