David Addington
Encyclopedia
David Spears Addington was legal counsel
(2001–2005) and chief of staff
(2005–2009) to former Vice President
Dick Cheney
, and is now vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation
.
During 21 years of federal service, Addington worked at the CIA, the Reagan White House, the Department of Defense, four congressional committees, and the Cheney Office of the Vice President. He was appointed to replace I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.
as Cheney's chief of staff upon Libby's resignation when Libby was indicted on charges of perjury
and obstruction of justice
on October 28, 2005. Addington was described by U.S. News & World Report
as "the most powerful man you've never heard of" in May 2006.
.
in Albuquerque
, New Mexico
in 1974. He was admitted to United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and attended beginning in Fall 1974, but did not graduate. He is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
at Georgetown University
(B.S.F.S., summa cum laude) and holds a J.D.
(with honors) from Duke University School of Law
. He was admitted to the bar
in 1981.
Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency
from 1981 to 1984.
From 1984 to 1987 he was counsel for the House
committees on intelligence and foreign affairs. He served as a staff attorney on the joint U.S. House-Senate committee investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal as an assistant to Congressman Bill Broomfield (R-MI). Books and news articles have said that he was one of the principal authors of a controversial minority report issued at the conclusion of the joint committee's investigation, which "defended President Reagan
by claiming it was 'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'" but in his opening remarks as he testified under subpoena
before the House Judiciary Committee, Addington said that he had left the committee's service before the minority report was written and had no role in it.
Addington was also a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan
for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's deputy assistant. From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to Cheney who was then the Secretary of Defense
, before being appointed by President George H. W. Bush
and confirmed by the Senate as the Department of Defense
's general counsel in 1992. In 1993 and 1994, Addington was the Republican staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In 1994 and 1995, he headed a political action committee, the Alliance for American Leadership, set up to support Republican candidates for public office, with a principal focus on being a Presidential exploratory committee for Cheney, as the former Defense Secretary contemplated running for the 1996 Republican Presidential nomination.
From 1995 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firm
s Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz
and Holland & Knight
, and the American Trucking Association. He also provided extensive assistance to Dick Cheney when the latter was chief executive officer of Halliburton Corporation and was in charge of vetting
potential Presidential running mates for Texas
governor George W. Bush, before he was officially his party's nominee for the White House and surprised many political observers by choosing Cheney himself to be his running mate.
are to be first in line to succeed the President in the event of his or her death, or a statutorily-defined inability to effectively discharge the powers of the office, and to be the presiding officer of the United States Senate
, with the duty to cast a deciding vote in that body in the event of any tie votes among the members of the Senate itself.
As chief of staff, he supervised the Vice President's staff. In both roles, Addington also provided advice to the White House staff, as he had the additional bureaucratically important title of Assistant to the President, as his predecessor Scooter Libby had likewise held. As vice presidential counsel, Addington is known for his focus on the constitutional independence of the Vice President, including in the context of federal lawsuits to prevent incursions into the inner workings of the Office of the Vice President by the Government Accountability Office and private organizations.
After he began working for Vice President Cheney, Addington was very influential in many different areas of policy. He provided advice and drafted memoranda on many of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration
. Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on U.S. foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War
in the early 1970s. In his House Judiciary Committee testimony, Addington said that he applied three filters in formulating advice on the War on Terror
: (i) comply with the Constitution, (ii) within the law, maximize the President's options, and (iii) ensure legal protection of military and intelligence personnel engaged in counterterrorism activities.
Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution
, the President has substantial and expansive powers as commander-in-chief
during wartime, if need be. He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements that President George W. Bush
issued when signing bills passed by Congress, expanding the practice relative to other Presidents. Charlie Savage
, the former national legal affairs writer for The Boston Globe who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on signing statements, quotes former associate White House counsel Brad Berenson saying that Addington "would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal" as he crafted the statements.
A declassified CIA congressional briefing memo of February 4, 2003 states "The (CIA) General Counsel described the process by which the (enhanced interrogation) techniques were approved by a bevy of lawyers from the NSC, the Vice President’s office and the Justice Department," which makes it likely that Addington was aware of the coercive methods if not one or more of the "torture memos" as well, although it is not clear exactly what the CIA memo meant by the word 'approved' as none of the lawyers mentioned was in the chain of command that approves CIA operations and the White House-level lawyers relied on Justice Department legal opinions rather than developing and issuing legal opinions of their own. Press reports have alleged that Addington helped to shape an August 2002 opinion from the Department of Justice's
Office of Legal Counsel
(OLC) that said torture might be justified in some cases, although John Yoo
- who actually wrote those memos himself - avers in a book he later authored that the notion that Addington "had a hand in drafting Justice Department legal opinions in the war on terrorism" is "so erroneous as to be laughable."
U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- at the same time Addington was Cheney's personal counsel as Secretary of Defense - and then later when Powell was Secretary of State
, stated in an in-depth interview regarding extraordinary measures taken post 9/11: "...the man who, to me, brings all of this together more than Cheney himself, because he has one foot in the legal camp — and I must admit it’s a fairly brilliant foot — and he has one foot in the operator camp, that’s David Addington."
Press reports also state that Addington reportedly took a leading role in pressing for the use of coercive interrogation methods when a delegation of top Bush administration attorneys traveled to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in September 2002 to observe operations there, although Addington said that he could not recall this in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony. In congressional testimony, Addington has emphasized that "people out in the field, particularly the folks at the CIA, would not have engaged in their conduct and the head of the CIA would not have ordered them to engage in that conduct without knowing that the Attorney General of the United States or his authorized designee, which is what OLC is, has said this is lawful and they relied on that." The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a narrative concerning the Office of Legal Counsel opinions on interrogations on April 17, 2009.
Some press reports indicate that Addington advocated scaling back the authority of lawyers in the uniformed services; Addington in fact advocated merely that the civilian general counsels of the military departments be recognized as the chief legal officer
s of those departments.
Shortly after September 26, 2002, a Gulfstream
jet carrying Addington, Alberto Gonzales
, CIA attorney John A. Rizzo
, William Haynes II, two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher
and Patrick F. Philbin
, and the Office of Legal Counsel
's Jack Goldsmith
flew to Camp Delta
to view the facility that held enemy combatants, including Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston
, South Carolina
to view the facility that held enemy combatants, including José Padilla, and finally to Norfolk
, Virginia
, where they briefly viewed an enemy combatant on a videoscreen display.
In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Addington and 15 other current and former U.S. government officials for alleged war crimes. The German Prosecutor General at the Federal Supreme Court declined to initiate proceedings on the complaint.
According to Harvard Law School
professor Jack Goldsmith
, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, Addington once said that "we're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court," referring to the secret United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
, which oversees clandestine wiretapping.
Goldsmith also noted that Addington was speaking sarcastically at the time. Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman
writes that Addington was the author of the controlling legal and technical documents for the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program
, typing the documents on a Tempest
-shielded computer across from his desk in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and storing them in a vault in his office.
Former Secretary of State
Colin Powell
is alleged to have remarked in private, regarding who was responsible for the NSA
wiretapping of U.S. citizens without a warrant: "It's Addington," and further, that "he doesn't care about the Constitution."
when speaking with friends at a Washington Redskins
game. Jack Goldsmith
has written that if Powell indeed made this remark, "he was wrong," as Addington and Cheney "seemed to care passionately about the Constitution as they understood it." Further, it is alleged, at least during Cheney's term as Secretary of Defense from 1989–93, that Addington and Cheney were deeply and eagerly interested in the U.S. Continuity of Operations Plan
(CO-OP), to be used in the event of a nuclear attack
on the U.S. (and first partially implemented after 9/11/01). This plan is alleged to provide "enduring Constitutional government" under a "paramount unitary executive" with "cooperation from" Congress and the several Courts. This deep and eager interest in the CO-OP was reported by the New Yorker to extend to drills where Cheney spent his nights in a bunker, perhaps that "secure undisclosed location" which he was said to occupy following 9/11. Apparently Addington has taken this interest to the point where "For years, Addington has carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket
; taped onto the back are photocopies of extra statutes that detail the legal procedures for Presidential succession in times of national emergency..." perhaps, even a national emergency that involves the CO-OP.
Although press reports state that Addington consistently advocated the expansion of presidential powers and the unitary executive theory
, a nearly absolute deference to the executive branch from Congress and the judiciary
, Addington stated in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony that he intends the term "unitary executive" to refer to the provision of the Constitution that vests all "executive Power" in "a President" rather than in multiple officials or Congress. In a June 26, 2007 letter to Senator John Kerry
, Addington asserted that by virtue of Executive Order 12958
as amended in 2003, the Office of the Vice President was exempt from oversight by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office
for its handling of classified materials, which President George W. Bush
confirmed to be the correct interpretation of his revised order. He had previously pushed for elimination of a presidentially-mandated position (as opposed to at the option of the Archivist) of director of the oversight office after a dispute over oversight of classified information
.
The story was broken after the Chicago Tribune
noticed an asterisk in an ISOO report "that it contained no information from OVP". Although a federal district judge initially ordered Addington to submit to a deposition
in a lawsuit filed to protect Cheney's vice-presidential records from potential destruction under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978,
the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overruled the federal district judge and held that Addington did not have to submit to the deposition.
Addington, along with other officials, was mentioned by title in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.'s indictment for five felony
charges related to the Plame affair
, regarding the leak of the identity of a CIA officer, and he testified at the Libby trial.
A PBS Frontline documentary "Cheney's Law" broadcast on October 16, 2007 detailed Addington's key role in Bush administration policy making, and noted that he declined to be interviewed regarding his thoughts on the limits of executive privilege
. On June 26, 2008, Addington appeared to testify under subpoena
from the House Judiciary Committee
along with former Justice Department attorney John Yoo
in a contentious hearing on detainee treatment, interrogation methods and the extent of executive branch authority.video This testimony was Addington's only public statement during his eight years as Cheney's vice presidential counsel and chief of staff.
, a Spanish judge who has considered international war crimes charges against other high-profile figures, considered whether to allow charges made by Gonzalo Boye
, a lawyer who once defended MIR and ETA, to be laid against Addington and five other former officials of the George W. Bush Presidency. Judge Garzon did not dismiss the complaint, but instead ordered the complaint assigned by lottery to another judge, who will then decide whether to pursue the complaint or not. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido "strongly criticized" the proceedings, labeling them a legal "artifice." Pumpido recommended against prosecution due to lack of material responsibility on the part of the American officials.
Office of Legal Counsel
The Office of Legal Counsel is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General in his function as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies.-History:...
(2001–2005) and chief of staff
Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
The Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States is the Chief of Staff position within the Office of the Vice President, part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States...
(2005–2009) to former Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
, and is now vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
.
During 21 years of federal service, Addington worked at the CIA, the Reagan White House, the Department of Defense, four congressional committees, and the Cheney Office of the Vice President. He was appointed to replace I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.
Lewis Libby
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, later disbarred and convicted of a felony....
as Cheney's chief of staff upon Libby's resignation when Libby was indicted on charges of perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
and obstruction of justice
Obstruction of justice
The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of interfering with the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other officials...
on October 28, 2005. Addington was described by U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
as "the most powerful man you've never heard of" in May 2006.
Family
Addington is the son of Eleanore and the late Jerry Addington, a retired brigadier general and West Point graduate. He is married to Cynthia Mary Addington; the couple have three children. Previously, Addington had been married to Linda Werling, whom he met while the two were both attending Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
.
Education and career
Addington graduated from Sandia High SchoolSandia High School
Sandia High School is a Public High School located in the northeast heights of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is a member of the Albuquerque Public Schools district. The current enrollment is 2,071.-History:...
in Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
in 1974. He was admitted to United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and attended beginning in Fall 1974, but did not graduate. He is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
(B.S.F.S., summa cum laude) and holds a J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
(with honors) from Duke University School of Law
Duke University School of Law
The Duke University School of Law is the law school and a constituent academic unit of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law began as the Trinity College School of Law in 1868. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity...
. He was admitted to the bar
Admission to the bar in the United States
In the United States, admission to the bar is the granting of permission by a particular court system to a lawyer to practice law in that system. Each U.S. state and similar jurisdiction has its own court system and sets its own rules for bar admission , which can lead to different admission...
in 1981.
Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
from 1981 to 1984.
From 1984 to 1987 he was counsel for the House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
committees on intelligence and foreign affairs. He served as a staff attorney on the joint U.S. House-Senate committee investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal as an assistant to Congressman Bill Broomfield (R-MI). Books and news articles have said that he was one of the principal authors of a controversial minority report issued at the conclusion of the joint committee's investigation, which "defended President Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
by claiming it was 'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'" but in his opening remarks as he testified under subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
before the House Judiciary Committee, Addington said that he had left the committee's service before the minority report was written and had no role in it.
Addington was also a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's deputy assistant. From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to Cheney who was then the Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
, before being appointed by President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
and confirmed by the Senate as the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
's general counsel in 1992. In 1993 and 1994, Addington was the Republican staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In 1994 and 1995, he headed a political action committee, the Alliance for American Leadership, set up to support Republican candidates for public office, with a principal focus on being a Presidential exploratory committee for Cheney, as the former Defense Secretary contemplated running for the 1996 Republican Presidential nomination.
From 1995 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firm
Law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other...
s Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz
Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz
Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz P.C. is a large U.S. law firm and lobbying group with offices in the Southeastern United States, Washington, D.C. and London, England. According to the National Law Journal's 2010 rankings, it is the 72nd largest law firm in the United States, and...
and Holland & Knight
Holland & Knight
Holland & Knight is an international law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in 17 U.S. offices. Other offices around the world are located in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Beijing, China, and Mexico City, Mexico. Holland & Knight provides representation in litigation, business, real estate and governmental law.-...
, and the American Trucking Association. He also provided extensive assistance to Dick Cheney when the latter was chief executive officer of Halliburton Corporation and was in charge of vetting
Vetting
Vetting is a process of examination and evaluation, generally referring to performing a background check on someone before offering him or her employment, conferring an award, etc...
potential Presidential running mates for Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
governor George W. Bush, before he was officially his party's nominee for the White House and surprised many political observers by choosing Cheney himself to be his running mate.
Vice President's office
As counsel to the Vice President, Addington's duties involved protecting the purported legal interests of the Office of the Vice President, despite the only duties actually given the U.S. Vice President under the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
are to be first in line to succeed the President in the event of his or her death, or a statutorily-defined inability to effectively discharge the powers of the office, and to be the presiding officer of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, with the duty to cast a deciding vote in that body in the event of any tie votes among the members of the Senate itself.
As chief of staff, he supervised the Vice President's staff. In both roles, Addington also provided advice to the White House staff, as he had the additional bureaucratically important title of Assistant to the President, as his predecessor Scooter Libby had likewise held. As vice presidential counsel, Addington is known for his focus on the constitutional independence of the Vice President, including in the context of federal lawsuits to prevent incursions into the inner workings of the Office of the Vice President by the Government Accountability Office and private organizations.
After he began working for Vice President Cheney, Addington was very influential in many different areas of policy. He provided advice and drafted memoranda on many of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
. Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on U.S. foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
in the early 1970s. In his House Judiciary Committee testimony, Addington said that he applied three filters in formulating advice on the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
: (i) comply with the Constitution, (ii) within the law, maximize the President's options, and (iii) ensure legal protection of military and intelligence personnel engaged in counterterrorism activities.
Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, the President has substantial and expansive powers as commander-in-chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
during wartime, if need be. He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements that President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
issued when signing bills passed by Congress, expanding the practice relative to other Presidents. Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage is a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C., with the New York Times, which he joined in May 2008. In 2007, when employed by the Boston Globe, he was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on the issue of Presidential Signing Statements, specifically the use...
, the former national legal affairs writer for The Boston Globe who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on signing statements, quotes former associate White House counsel Brad Berenson saying that Addington "would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal" as he crafted the statements.
A declassified CIA congressional briefing memo of February 4, 2003 states "The (CIA) General Counsel described the process by which the (enhanced interrogation) techniques were approved by a bevy of lawyers from the NSC, the Vice President’s office and the Justice Department," which makes it likely that Addington was aware of the coercive methods if not one or more of the "torture memos" as well, although it is not clear exactly what the CIA memo meant by the word 'approved' as none of the lawyers mentioned was in the chain of command that approves CIA operations and the White House-level lawyers relied on Justice Department legal opinions rather than developing and issuing legal opinions of their own. Press reports have alleged that Addington helped to shape an August 2002 opinion from the Department of Justice's
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
Office of Legal Counsel
Office of Legal Counsel
The Office of Legal Counsel is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General in his function as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies.-History:...
(OLC) that said torture might be justified in some cases, although John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
- who actually wrote those memos himself - avers in a book he later authored that the notion that Addington "had a hand in drafting Justice Department legal opinions in the war on terrorism" is "so erroneous as to be laughable."
U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
Lawrence Wilkerson
Lawrence B. "Larry" Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell...
, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, and is the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Defense...
- at the same time Addington was Cheney's personal counsel as Secretary of Defense - and then later when Powell was Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
, stated in an in-depth interview regarding extraordinary measures taken post 9/11: "...the man who, to me, brings all of this together more than Cheney himself, because he has one foot in the legal camp — and I must admit it’s a fairly brilliant foot — and he has one foot in the operator camp, that’s David Addington."
Press reports also state that Addington reportedly took a leading role in pressing for the use of coercive interrogation methods when a delegation of top Bush administration attorneys traveled to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in September 2002 to observe operations there, although Addington said that he could not recall this in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony. In congressional testimony, Addington has emphasized that "people out in the field, particularly the folks at the CIA, would not have engaged in their conduct and the head of the CIA would not have ordered them to engage in that conduct without knowing that the Attorney General of the United States or his authorized designee, which is what OLC is, has said this is lawful and they relied on that." The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a narrative concerning the Office of Legal Counsel opinions on interrogations on April 17, 2009.
Some press reports indicate that Addington advocated scaling back the authority of lawyers in the uniformed services; Addington in fact advocated merely that the civilian general counsels of the military departments be recognized as the chief legal officer
Chief Legal Officer
A chief legal officer is the highest-ranking corporate officer concerning legal affairs of a corporation or agency. Chief legal officers typically hold the title of general counsel.- Skill requirements :...
s of those departments.
Shortly after September 26, 2002, a Gulfstream
Gulfstream Aerospace
Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation is a producer of several models of jet aircraft. Gulfstream has been a unit of General Dynamics since 1999.The company has produced more than 1,500 aircraft for corporate, government, private, and military customers around the world...
jet carrying Addington, Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, CIA attorney John A. Rizzo
John A. Rizzo
John A. Rizzo was a lawyer at the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the acting General Counsel or Deputy Counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror, during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe. "Enhanced interrogation...
, William Haynes II, two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher
Alice S. Fisher
Alice S. Fisher was appointed by President George W. Bush in a recess appointment August 31, 2005, as Assistant Attorney General to head the Criminal Division in the United States Department of Justice....
and Patrick F. Philbin
Patrick F. Philbin
Patrick F. Philbin is an American lawyer and Bush administration appointee.-Academics:Philbin wrote a note in the Harvard Law Review regarding the specialty requirement in the medieval action of covenant.-Career:...
, and the Office of Legal Counsel
Office of Legal Counsel
The Office of Legal Counsel is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General in his function as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies.-History:...
's Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Landman Goldsmith is a Harvard Law School professor who has written a number of texts regarding international law, cyber law, and national security law...
flew to Camp Delta
Camp Delta
Camp Delta is a permanent detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay that replaced the temporary facilities of Camp X-Ray. Its first facilities were built between February 27 and mid-April 2002 by Navy Seabees, Marine Engineers, and workers from Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root...
to view the facility that held enemy combatants, including Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
to view the facility that held enemy combatants, including José Padilla, and finally to Norfolk
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, where they briefly viewed an enemy combatant on a videoscreen display.
In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Addington and 15 other current and former U.S. government officials for alleged war crimes. The German Prosecutor General at the Federal Supreme Court declined to initiate proceedings on the complaint.
According to Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
professor Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Landman Goldsmith is a Harvard Law School professor who has written a number of texts regarding international law, cyber law, and national security law...
, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, Addington once said that "we're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court," referring to the secret United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a U.S. federal court authorized under , . It was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 . The FISC oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United...
, which oversees clandestine wiretapping.
Goldsmith also noted that Addington was speaking sarcastically at the time. Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman
Barton Gellman
Barton David Gellman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, blogger and bestselling author.-Career:After 21 years on the staff of The Washington Post, Gellman resigned in February 2010 to concentrate on book and magazine writing...
writes that Addington was the author of the controlling legal and technical documents for the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency as part of the war on terror...
, typing the documents on a Tempest
TEMPEST
TEMPEST is a codename referring to investigations and studies of compromising emission . Compromising emanations are defined as unintentional intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, may disclose the information transmitted, received, handled, or otherwise processed by any...
-shielded computer across from his desk in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and storing them in a vault in his office.
Former Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
is alleged to have remarked in private, regarding who was responsible for the NSA
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
wiretapping of U.S. citizens without a warrant: "It's Addington," and further, that "he doesn't care about the Constitution."
when speaking with friends at a Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
game. Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Landman Goldsmith is a Harvard Law School professor who has written a number of texts regarding international law, cyber law, and national security law...
has written that if Powell indeed made this remark, "he was wrong," as Addington and Cheney "seemed to care passionately about the Constitution as they understood it." Further, it is alleged, at least during Cheney's term as Secretary of Defense from 1989–93, that Addington and Cheney were deeply and eagerly interested in the U.S. Continuity of Operations Plan
Continuity of Operations Plan
Continuity of Operations is a United States Federal initiative, required by Presidential directive, to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances....
(CO-OP), to be used in the event of a nuclear attack
First strike
In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing...
on the U.S. (and first partially implemented after 9/11/01). This plan is alleged to provide "enduring Constitutional government" under a "paramount unitary executive" with "cooperation from" Congress and the several Courts. This deep and eager interest in the CO-OP was reported by the New Yorker to extend to drills where Cheney spent his nights in a bunker, perhaps that "secure undisclosed location" which he was said to occupy following 9/11. Apparently Addington has taken this interest to the point where "For years, Addington has carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket
Pocket Constitution
A pocket Constitution usually refers to a printed copy of the United States Constitution that is pocket- or pamphlet-sized and can fit in a pocket, purse, or other small container for portability....
; taped onto the back are photocopies of extra statutes that detail the legal procedures for Presidential succession in times of national emergency..." perhaps, even a national emergency that involves the CO-OP.
Although press reports state that Addington consistently advocated the expansion of presidential powers and the unitary executive theory
Unitary executive theory
The unitary executive theory is a theory of American constitutional law holding that the President controls the entire executive branch. The doctrine is based upon Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests "the executive power" of the United States in the President.Although that...
, a nearly absolute deference to the executive branch from Congress and the judiciary
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
, Addington stated in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony that he intends the term "unitary executive" to refer to the provision of the Constitution that vests all "executive Power" in "a President" rather than in multiple officials or Congress. In a June 26, 2007 letter to Senator John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, Addington asserted that by virtue of Executive Order 12958
Executive Order 12958
Executive Order 12958 created new standards for the process of identifying and protecting classified information, and led to an unprecedented effort to declassify millions of pages from the U.S. diplomatic and national security history. In 1995, United States President William J. Clinton signed...
as amended in 2003, the Office of the Vice President was exempt from oversight by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office
Information Security Oversight Office
The Information Security Oversight Office is responsible to the President for policy and oversight of the government-wide security classification system and the National Industrial Security Program...
for its handling of classified materials, which President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
confirmed to be the correct interpretation of his revised order. He had previously pushed for elimination of a presidentially-mandated position (as opposed to at the option of the Archivist) of director of the oversight office after a dispute over oversight of classified information
Classified information in the United States
The United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
.
The story was broken after the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
noticed an asterisk in an ISOO report "that it contained no information from OVP". Although a federal district judge initially ordered Addington to submit to a deposition
Deposition (law)
In the law of the United States, a deposition is the out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that is reduced to writing for later use in court or for discovery purposes. It is commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada and is almost always conducted outside of court by the...
in a lawsuit filed to protect Cheney's vice-presidential records from potential destruction under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978,
the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overruled the federal district judge and held that Addington did not have to submit to the deposition.
Addington, along with other officials, was mentioned by title in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.'s indictment for five felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
charges related to the Plame affair
Plame affair
The Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
, regarding the leak of the identity of a CIA officer, and he testified at the Libby trial.
A PBS Frontline documentary "Cheney's Law" broadcast on October 16, 2007 detailed Addington's key role in Bush administration policy making, and noted that he declined to be interviewed regarding his thoughts on the limits of executive privilege
Executive privilege
In the United States government, executive privilege is the power claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government...
. On June 26, 2008, Addington appeared to testify under subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
from the House Judiciary Committee
United States House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
along with former Justice Department attorney John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
in a contentious hearing on detainee treatment, interrogation methods and the extent of executive branch authority.video This testimony was Addington's only public statement during his eight years as Cheney's vice presidential counsel and chief of staff.
Spanish charges considered
In March 2009 Baltasar GarzónBaltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
, a Spanish judge who has considered international war crimes charges against other high-profile figures, considered whether to allow charges made by Gonzalo Boye
Gonzalo Boye
Gonzalo Boye is a human rights lawyer, based in Spain, notable for trying to use Spanish law to charge Bush administration officials for their roles in war crimes committed against citizens or residents of Spain while the US held them in extrajudicial detention.Boye was born in Chile.Many nations...
, a lawyer who once defended MIR and ETA, to be laid against Addington and five other former officials of the George W. Bush Presidency. Judge Garzon did not dismiss the complaint, but instead ordered the complaint assigned by lottery to another judge, who will then decide whether to pursue the complaint or not. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido "strongly criticized" the proceedings, labeling them a legal "artifice." Pumpido recommended against prosecution due to lack of material responsibility on the part of the American officials.
Records
The Vice Presidential records created or obtained by David S. Addington during his service as Counsel to the Vice President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President from 2001 to 2009 are preserved and maintained by the Archivist of the United States at the National Archives under the law.External links
- "Pushing the Limit on Presidential Powers," by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, The Washington Post, Monday, June 25, 2007
- "The Hidden Power," by Jane Mayer, profile of David Addington in the July 3, 2006, issue of The New Yorker magazine.
- The New Yorker magazine Q&A with Jane Mayer about her David Addington article
- Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview of Jane Mayer about her David Addington article July 5, 2006
- David Addington's campaign contributions
- 'Democracy Now!' coverage of Addington's appointment as chief of staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney and his role in the expansion of presidential power
- Meet David Addington: Cheney's Guy
- "50 Most Powerful People in D.C.", GQ Magazine, August, 2007
- December 12, 2002 letter from Addington as OVP general counsel to operator of parody website
- The Man Behind the Torture, New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 19, December 6, 2007.
- Madness and Shame, New York Times, July 22, 2008.