Darth Cheney Wants to Ruin History

Posted by Looseheadprop , Firedoglake at 4:23 AM on December 20, 2008.

Welcome back to another day in CrazyWorld CheneyWorld, or as we like to call it, the "Fourth Branch". The NYTimes via AP is reporting that Darth Cheney has declared that he, and he alone, has the power to decide which, if any, of his papers are covered by the Presidential Records Act.

-- Dick Cheney's lawyers are asserting that the Vice President alone has the authority to determine which records, if any, from his tenure will be handed over to the National Archives when he leaves office in January

Clearly, he thinks he has more expertise in these matters than, oh say, the National Archivist, ya know? A person who is a professional in these matters?

The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires all presidential and vice presidential records to be transferred to the National Archives immediately upon the end of the president's last term of office and gives the archivist responsibility to preserve and control access to presidential records. The law ended the tradition of private ownership of presidential papers, opening White House records to the public and historians. But the law carves out exceptions for personal or purely partisan records.

National Archives officials have said records of Cheney's dealings with the Republican National Committee would not require preservation under the law. As of November, it had not made a final determination on the status of Cheney's records produced when he acts as president of the Senate, which he says are exempt.

But the law is unclear on how disagreements will be decided about the preservation of disputed records, said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists.

OK

Look, SOMEBODY better slap a subpoena on this mook before he shreds all the evidence of what has actually happened for the last 8 years. I don't care who, Congress, DOJ, a Qui Tam plaintiff, somebody.

If he shreds in the face of said subpoena, he could be on the hook for contempt and maybe even obstruction. Even without a subpoena, if anybody assisting in the shredding ever flips on him, and he shredded evidence of his own criminality, he would still have an obstruction problem.

So, Darth, how SURE are you that your people will stick by you?

Tagged as: bush, dick cheney, history, darth cheney, 1978 presidential records

Looseheadprop is a regular blogger for FireDogLake