Who is David Addington?

[katty]

more at:

http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=05/11/01/1518210

excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who David Addington is?

MURRAY WAAS: Well, there's -- he worked -- he's a guy who's been involved in politics for a long time. He has an intelligence background. He was Chief Counsel – he was a counsel to the House Intelligence Committee and also had been a counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It should be noted that's how he and Dick Cheney became friends. Dick Cheney had been in the House of Representatives in the 1980s. Addington had been the counsel to the committee. The two got to know each other. Dick Cheney then became the Secretary of Defense during the first President Bush -- first President Bush's administration. David Addington came as not only counsel to Cheney at the Defense Department, but also as special assistant. So the relationship between Cheney and Addington is very close. But Cheney, Libby, Addington, the three of them is kind of three people who have been very close politically, personally know each other, share common goals.

AMY GOODMAN: So what does it mean with the indictment of Libby and Libby resigning that he has stuck within this inner circle, who Addington has been in terms of known for secrecy, even being a part of perhaps the whole leak circle?

MURRAY WAAS: Well, Addington, Cheney and Libby share a philosophical viewpoint that the executive branch, the presidency had been weakened by Watergate and Iran-Contra, Vietnam, whatever, and it was time for the executives to reassert themselves, time for a stronger presidency. And they also believe that the executive was not exercising enough prerogatives regarding release of information, that the executive didn't have to turn over information to Congress, doesn't have to make certain things public. In their view, all three of them, they want to reassert what they think is a power that's been taken away.

The secrecy issue is kind of extraordinary, the degree to which they take it. We talked to, for the story that I wrote in the National Journal, my colleagues spoke to a guy named Bruce Fein, who was a senior official in the Reagan administration's Justice Department. And his name is Bruce Fein. And he said, “We’ve never” -- he's a conservative. He said, ‘We've never seen anything like this. We've never seen the secrecy, we've never seen the executive privilege claims, the holding back of information.’ What makes that notable is that Bruce Fein, who’s now an attorney in private practice, he was severely criticized himself by members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, and also by advocacy groups for, himself, expanding executive authority regarding secrecy.

[PDittie]

1. Murray Waas and Amy Goodman are as

good as it gets.

[Divernan]

2. Also the ghostwriter for Gonzales' torture memos

See the most recent BushBeat in the Village Voice for many horrifying details on Addington. He even scares the conservatives with his overreaching for executive powers.

www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/002013.php

"He was the ghost writer of Gonzales' torture memos, the most odious justifications for torture that ever slimed their way out of the White House. . . " and also the guy "who slammed the door on the public's right to know what went on in Chaney's" all -
corporate, all the time "energy task force."

Please read the whole column - it's jam packed with information on this guy. It refers to him as "Fallout Boy" to Chaney's (yellow cake) Radioactive Man.
I'm nominating this thread because this guy is very dangerous and very powerful and we need to know our enemies.

[spindrifter]

3. Secrecy is power and manipulation

It is a basic of human behavior--if you want to look like you are asserting power, you have secrets. If you want to manipulate people, you make them think they are equal to you by sharing secrets with them.
The big problem with these back seat drivers is that they picked a shell of an intellect to install as the Executive. If they had someone who could actually think on his own two feet they would have been able to build a stronger Executive branch, but it would also have cut into their domination of the neo-power scheme.

[leveymg]

4. Addington part of the Cheney-Libby conspiracy to out Plame?

Consider this from Murray Waas' article in The National Journal in light of Joshua Marshall's suggestion that the Fitzgerald indictment of Libby contains reference to a conspiracy by Cheney and Libby to reveal Plame's identity to TIME Magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1891715&mesg_id=1891748

According to the indictment, Libby discussed that subject with someone from the Office of the Vice President on an AF2 flight on July 12, 2003. According to Washington Post, Cheney and Libby were alone, aside from Catherine Martin, Cheney's press secretary at the time, on that flight.

Now put that together with the following information in the Wass article.

SNIP
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1030nj1.htm


If Libby stands trial, it appears all but certain that Addington will be a crucial witness against Libby, according to attorneys involved in the case. That is because the indictment charges that Libby told a "fictitious" account to the grand jury that he only learned of Plame's CIA employment from journalists, rather than from classified information. The indictment charges that Libby committed perjury by testifying to the grand jury that he only first learned of Plame's CIA employment from NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, and that Russert told him that the information about Plame had been common knowledge for some time. Russert, however, testified to the grand jury that he never told Libby about Plame.

Instead, the indictment charges, Libby learned about Plame and Plame's possible role in recommending her husband for the Niger mission from government officials: an undersecretary of state; a CIA officer who regularly briefed Libby on national security issues; an unidentified "senior CIA officer"; and Vice President Cheney himself. Libby in turned shared that information with a number of officials in the vice president's office, according to the indictment: Addington; John Hannah, the deputy national security advisor; and Catherine Martin, then Cheney's press secretary.

It would not have been inappropriate for the various officials to have learned of Plame's identity as a CIA officer and discussed it among themselves, as long as they did not disclose the information outside of government circles, as Libby allegedly did, according to Fitzgerald's indictment. The role of Addington differs from that of the other officials, however, in that it is the only known instance in which Libby tried to get a member of the vice president's office to find out additional information about Plame, according to the indictment.

Addington regularly attended detailed strategy sessions with Libby and other members of the vice president's staff to discuss how they might discredit Wilson and blunt his allegations that the White House misrepresented information on the Niger mission, according to government officials with detailed knowledge of those meetings. During those discussions, Addington and others discussed the possibility of selectively releasing classified information to Congress that would discredit Wilson, according to the same sources.

SNIP

Now this about Addington's apparent role as the go-between Cheney and Libby in the latter's ongoing dialogue with Judy Miller:

When Libby and Miller met on July 8, 2003, Cheney's office was involved in an effort to discredit Wilson. The former ambassador had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium material from the African nation in order to build a nuclear weapon. On July 6, Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times, and gave interviews to news organizations saying he found no evidence to back up the claim Iraq purchased the uranium, and he charged that the Bush administration was manipulating evidence in the matter. At their breakfast meeting, Libby told Miller that Plame worked at the CIA, and also alleged that the CIA sent Wilson to Niger on Plame's recommendation, according to the grand jury indictment.

During the breakfast, according to attorneys familiar with Libby's previously undisclosed statements to federal investigators, Miller insisted that Libby provide her with additional information on Wilson and Plame to bolster any story she might write. Miller testified to the grand jury that it was Libby who offered to find additional evidence to verify what he had told the Times reporter, according to legal sources familiar with Miller's version of events.
Whatever the case, when Libby returned to the White House after meeting with Miller, he sought out Addington. Attempts to reach Addington for comment for this story were unsuccessful. He did not return messages left on his White House voice mail over the course of several days.


Four days after the Libby-Miller breakfast and Libby's discussion with Addington, Libby gave Miller additional information on Wilson and Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Miller's testimony. Phone records reviewed by the grand jury in the CIA leak investigation appear to confirm that Libby and Miller had a three-minute conversation on July 12 while Miller was apparently in a taxicab returning home. When the reporter got home, she and Libby spoke for a 37 minutes, according to the phone records.
Although Miller would not write a story about Plame and Wilson, on July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak disclosed in his syndicated column that Plame was an "agency operative" and had engaged in nepotism by suggesting her husband for the CIA's Niger mission.

SNIP