Cheney Sidesteps Travel Disclosure Rules

[Algorem]

http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobby/report.aspx?aid=760

November 16, 2005

Unlike the rest of the White House, Cheney doesn't make his outside travel public

By Kate Sheppard and Bob Williams

WASHINGTON, November 16, 2005 — Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered.

Cheney's office also appears to have stuck taxpayers with untold millions in travel costs rather than accepting trip sponsors' funds that the rules would require to be disclosed.

It's not as if those in Cheney's office don't indulge in the type of junkets that are routinely funded by private sources. Instead of accepting reimbursement for such trips like other government travelers, it appears that his office labels them "official travel." As a result, however, the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting with and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill.

It's also not as if Cheney hasn't faced questions about secrecy and his travel in the past. In January 2003, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was reportedly Cheney's guest aboard Air Force Two on a flight south for a winter duck hunting trip at a property owned by an oil executive in southern Louisiana...

[Spinzonner]

1. Undisclosed trips to undisclosed locations

to meet undisclosed persons for undisclosed purposes.

The Emperor has undisclosed

[ixion]

2. remember the travelgate scandal during the Cliton era?

it involved a mountain made from a mole hill by the GOP at the time.

This is a far, far more serious abuse of office. Where is the GOP and their moral outrage now? :grr:

[Spinzonner]

3. The same place their heads are

[Demeter]

4. Exactly How Would You Report Trips To the 9th Circle to See Satan?

The man is doing the best he can; it's the system that's broke! There's no computer code for trips to Hell (the one that isn't in Michigan).