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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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October 1st,
2009 - Justice Dept. Ordered to Release Cheney Statements in Plame Case |
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Justice Dept. Ordered to
Release Cheney Statements in Plame Case By Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post October 1, 2009 A federal judge Thursday
ordered the Justice Department to make public large portions of statements
made by then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney to federal investigators about
the Valerie Plame case. Ruling in a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit brought by a public interest group, the judge
dismissed government objections to releasing FBI reports and notes, which
describe an interview Cheney had with a special prosecutor. The government had argued
that it could withhold the records because their release might chill
cooperation by White House officials in future investigations. At one point, the Justice
Department argued that future officials might not want to talk to
investigators if they knew that such interviews might "get on 'The Daily
Show' " or be used as a political weapon. But U.S. District Judge
Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that the government's arguments were too vague to
justify withholding the documents. The Justice Department
cannot "describe with any reasonable degree of particularity the subject
matter of the hypothetical proceedings, the parties involved, when such
proceedings might occur, or how the information withheld here might be used
by the hypothetical parties to interfere with these hypothetical proceedings,"
the judge wrote. To properly withhold the
records, the judge said, the Justice Department has to show that the release
of specific information contained in the Cheney reports would harm a future
investigation. He cited an appeals court ruling in 1993 that the Justice
Department could withhold records involving Nazi war crimes. Though no
specific Nazi-related investigations were pending, the information sought in
that case was likely to be used in "reasonably anticipated" future
prosecutions of Nazi war criminals, the appeals court held. That is not the case with
the Cheney records, the judge wrote. The government conceded in
court hearings that no prosecutions would result from the information Cheney
supplied. Sullivan did agree with the
Justice Department, however, that "limited information" can be
withheld that involves national security matters, personal information or
communications between Cheney and then-President George W. Bush. The Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sought the records under the Freedom
of Information Act last year. Anne Weismann, chief counsel
for CREW, said, "Overall we are very pleased that the judge did not
accept an interpretation of FOIA that would have allowed the government to
withhold law enforcement records in virtually every case." She said she was
disappointed that the judge is allowing the Justice Department to withhold
portions of the documents. Weismann said the redacted portions of the
documents might be "the most revealing." A spokesman for the Justice
Department, Charles Miller, did not return a phone message seeking comment. The judge ordered that the
documents be turned over by Oct. 9. CREW wanted documents describing Cheney's
interviews with Patrick Fitzgerald in 2004 as part of the special
prosecutor's probe of the Bush administration's leak of Plame's links to the
CIA. Plame was a covert CIA
officer until her name appeared in the media after public criticism by her
husband, Joe Wilson, a former diplomat, of the Bush administration's policies
in Iraq. Cheney was never charged with any wrongdoing, but his former chief
of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted in 2007 of
obstruction of justice and perjury in the probe. Bush later commuted Libby's
2 1/2 -year prison sentence. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100102746.html |