Bending the Third Rail

Because We Should, We Can, We Do

Thursday, April 06, 2006

A Point of Dispute UPDATE

I had assumed that the Preznit was legally authorized to declassify stuff. But apparently, there's some dispute about that, at least according to Josh Marshall and Murray Waas:

Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.

Libby thinks he can. That's his story, and he's sticking to it .... at least until the pardon.

UPDATE: The conventional wisdom that Bush has the authority to declassify documents on his say-so is based on his own executive order:

Did Bush break the law in allowing Libby to talk about the NIE?

Probably not. An executive order issued by Bush in March 2003 gives the president and vice president specific authority to declassify documents at will. (See Sec. 1.3 here.) It is plausible, if not likely, that the president's authorization of Libby to talk to Miller about the NIE amounted to declassifying the document.

Note ... this executive order has never been challenged nor reviewed by the Supreme Court. At this point, I would say the legality is very much in question. Plus, it should be noted that the timeline of events suggests the "declassification" took place after the revelation, and that procedures were not followed.

Written at 1:02 PM by Greyhair.

1 comments

1 Comments:

Lynne said...

That ought to be some kind of comfort for all the men and women working undercover or on classified projects. Anger the president and find your ass hanging out in the wind.

1:10 PM

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