Dick Cheney: October 2009

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Dick Cheney: October 2009

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2009, 6:35PM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

It's not news that Dick Cheney takes an expansive view of executive privilege. But one passage from the just released Plame interview documents makes clear just how far he took it.

When asked if he ever advised Libby that the president had decided to declassify the NIE, the vice president declined to answer in view of his concerns about sharing potentially privileged conversations between himself and the President. it was clarified for the Vice President that he was not being asked to comment on the substance of his conversations with the President, but rather, only whether he'd ever told Libby that he'd had such a discussion with the President. In response, Vice President Cheney repeated his assertion that he must refrain from commenting to the investigators about any private and/or privileged conversations he may have had with the President.

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Topics: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Scooter Libby

Cheney Wanted McClellan To Exonerate Libby As Well As Rove

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2009, 6:16PM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney told FBI investigators he wasn't happy when Scott McClelllan, then the White House press secretary, publicly told reporters that Karl Rove wasn't the source of the Plame leak.

From the just-released documents:

The Vice President was not happy about it, as it appeared that the White House press office was putting down markers for some individuals and not for others. Specifically, Vice President Cheney believed that fairness dictated that similar disqualifying statements should be made to the media on behalf of Libby and Elliot Abrams of the NSC, both of whom were the speculative targets of leak allegations by the media that week.

In other words, Cheney wanted Libby and Abrams exonerated in addition to Rove.

Of course, we now know that both Rove and Libby did leak Plame's name to reporters, though not to Novak.

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Topics: Dick Cheney, Elliot Abrams, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Scott McClellan, Valerie Plame

Cheney: Sending Wilson To Niger Was "Amateur Hour" At The CIA

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2009, 5:28PM

Dick Cheney told FBI investigators that his response to hearing that Joe Wilson had been sent to Niger to assess whether Saddam had tried to buy yellow-cake was that it was "amateur hour" at the CIA.

That's according to a summary of the FBI's interview with Cheney, which was conducted as part of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. The document was just released by the Justice Department, thanks to a lawsuit by CREW.