Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info

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Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info

Posted on Feb 16, 2006

WASHINGTON—Vice President Dick Cheney disclosed Wednesday that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information, authority that could set up a criminal defense for his former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Cheney’s disclosure comes a week after reports that Libby testified under oath he was authorized by superiors in 2003 to disclose highly sensitive prewar information to reporters. The information, about Iraq and alleged weapons of mass destruction, was used by the Bush administration to bolster its case for invading Iraq.

Truthdig says:

Apparently both he and President Bush have this power, but the VP was mum on details. The disclosure, in his interview with Fox News, could lay the groundwork for a criminal defense of his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby.

Read the full text of his interview here.

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TAGS: criminal declassify defense information scooter libby sensitive wmds

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By xsociate23, February 17, 2006 at 3:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I was rather curious about this ‘authority’ that Cheney was claiming to have too. So I googled and sure enough, there is an Executive Order (#13292) that does seem to give Cheney the authority.

Not surprisingly, this new EO was an amendment to an earlier one and now gave Cheney authority to ‘declassify’ info. The timing of the amendment has me wondering as well. It came right before Libby leaked WMD info to the press.

Seems like someone was thinking ahead.

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