By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
June 1, 2007
WASHINGTON - In the past year, lawyers for President Bush
and Vice President Dick Cheney directed the Secret Service
to maintain the confidentiality of visitor logs, declaring
them to be presidential records.
The drive to keep secret the lists of visitors to the White
House complex and Cheney's home, the administration says, is
essential to ensuring the president and vice president receive
candid advice to carry out their duties. The decision made
the logs exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever
asks to see them.
The latest part of the strategy emerged this week when the
government disclosed a letter from Cheney's counsel placing
visitor logs for his personal residence on the Naval Observatory
grounds in the category of presidential records.
The Secret Service is turning over all visitors' data to the
White House.
"Every record from the U.S. Secret Service received by
the White House or the office of the vice president is being
preserved pursuant to the Presidential Records Act," White
House spokesman Tony Fratto said Friday.
Cheney's counsel wrote the Secret Service last September,
stating the agency "shall not retain any copy of these
documents and information" once the material is given
to Cheney's office.
A week ago, the government filed court papers stating that
the Secret Service is retaining copies of the visitor logs
because of pending lawsuits, and that Cheney's office agrees
with the decision.
A private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, has filed two lawsuits under the Freedom of Information
Act seeking Secret Service visitor logs. But the FOIA does
not apply to presidential records.
The Bush administration has exploited that different treatment
of records between the two laws, which prompted the fight in
federal court. The administration is seeking dismissal of the
lawsuits.
In trying to get the cases thrown out, the Justice Department
has filed documents in court outlining a behind-the-scenes
debate over whether Secret Service records are subject to public
disclosure. The discussions date back at least to the administration
of President Bush's father and involve the Justice Department
and the National Archives as well as the White House and Secret
Service.
The government's court filings show that the Bush White House
focused on the issue in the months before Election Day 2004.
Discussions moved into high gear when the Jack Abramoff lobbying
scandal prompted news organizations and private groups to demand
that the administration release Secret Service records of visitors
to the White House complex and the vice president's residence.
There was precedent for the demands.
During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional
committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting
investigations of the president and first lady.
Christopher Lehane, a former special assistant counsel to
President Clinton and press secretary to then-Vice President
Al Gore, points out the political implications of the Bush
administration campaign to close off access to the records.
"The question it raises is 'What are these guys hiding?'" said
Lehane, now a Democratic consultant. "They can live with
it because they've only got a year or so left, but it doesn't
do a lot for public confidence in open government."
Fratto said Thursday, "I can't comment on a case in litigation,
and I can't speak to the decisions made by other administrations."
The Bush administration says it is standing on principle.
"It is important that the president be able to receive
candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto
said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is
essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential."
In a declaration filed in court a week ago, Cheney's deputy
chief of staff, Claire O'Donnell, said that "systematic
public release of the information regarding when and with whom
the vice president and vice presidential personnel conduct
meetings would impinge on the ability of the OVP (office of
the vice president) to gather information in confidence and
perform its essential functions, including assisting the vice
president in his critical roles of advising and assisting the
president."
In May 2006, the Secret Service and the White House signed
a memorandum of understanding designating visitor records as
presidential.
They are "not the records of an 'agency' subject to the
Freedom of Information Act," says the agreement that was
not disclosed until months later, in late 2006. The records
are "at all times under the exclusive legal custody and
control of the White House."
Four months after the memorandum of agreement, Cheney's counsel
wrote to the Secret Service, stating that visitor records for
the vice president's personal residence "are and shall
remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control
of OVP."
The Sept. 13, 2006, date on the Cheney letter coincides with
requests by The Washington Post seeking records on the vice
president's visitors under the Freedom of Information Act.
"If any documents remain in your possession, please return
them to OVP as soon as possible," the letter stated.
The Justice Department filed the Cheney letter last Friday
in one of the lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics in Washington, which is invoking the FOIA law in
seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who
visited the White House complex and the vice president's residence.
The group, which represents Valerie Plame and her husband
in their lawsuit against Cheney and other key administration
figures in the leak of Plame's CIA identity, also is seeking
White House visitor logs in the Abramoff scandal.
According to government documents, the Secret Service routinely
destroyed five of eight categories of information relating
to visitors to Cheney's residence. Of the records it retained,
the Secret Service regularly turned over handwritten visitor
logs to Cheney's office.
The Secret Service stopped the destruction in June 2006 because
of lawsuits by various groups, according to the court papers.
The law enforcement agency also is retaining copies of the
material, contrary to the directive in the September 2006 letter
from Cheney's counsel.
The court filings by the government show that:
--On three occasions late in the administration of the first
President Bush and during the first term of President Clinton,
the Secret Service proposed treating copies of White House
visitor documents as non-presidential records. In its court
filings, the current Bush administration opposes releasing
details of the Secret Service proposals, saying this "poses
a substantial risk of creating public confusion" because
the proposals were never adopted.
--In January 2001, as Clinton prepared to leave office, White
House lawyers proposed the transfer of visitor records from
the Secret Service to the White House. The proposal was entitled "Disposition
of certain presidential records created by the USSS," or
the Secret Service. The records are now at the Clinton library
in Little Rock, Ark., the National Archives confirmed Thursday.
--In September 2004, a lawyer for the Bush White House and
a special assistant to the director of the Secret Service proposed "informal
views on one way to address the disposition" of visitor
records, according to court documents. The unnamed associate
White House counsel and the Secret Service assistant jointly
authored a July 29, 2004, document bearing the same title as
the Clinton administration document from 3 1/2 years earlier.
--In July 2005, the Secret Service gave a presentation on
the issue to the White House counsel's office, the Justice
Department and the National Archives.
--On May 11, 2006, the Justice Department's Office of Legal
Counsel provided a legal opinion on the issue, which is among
the many documents the government is refusing to disclose.
Six days later, the White House and the Secret Service signed
the agreement designating the records as presidential.
Presidential records are released starting five years after
a president leaves office. Under the Presidential Records Act
of 1978, nonclassified material is disclosed first, with classified
documents and advice to the president released later after
review by federal agencies, the White House and the former
president.
Under an executive order President Bush signed in 2001, the
archivist of the United States cannot unilaterally release
the records without the permission of the current president,
former presidents and their representatives.
"The scary thing about this move by the vice president's
office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton,
head of the National Security Archive, a private group that
uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.
"We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can
reach into any agency and say certain records have something
to do with the White House and they are presidential from now
on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely
creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."
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