Cheney, Witness for the Defense
I'll believe that Vice President Dick Cheney is going to testify in person at the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial early next year when I see the VP's grim countenance actually inside the courtroom after what surely would be a massive security sweep. Until that tense and dramatic image appears before me, I am going to continue to live under the assumption that our legal system, and our political system, is sadly not going to allow that historic moment to occur.
Remember, just because the defense wants to call Cheney as a witness to help defend his old friend Lewis Libby against perjury and obstruction of justice charges doesn't mean that the Vice President is going to do so. And just because the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, said last week that he didn't think the White House would object to any such request doesn't mean that even now White House lawyers are preparing their written objections to Cheney's in-court and under-oath testimony. The concept of executive privilege-- and this White House's penchant for not budging an inch on matters of executive perogative-- make such a defense likely despite all the happy rhetoric we are hearing from the litigants. Put another way, the office and the precedent are bigger than the man or this moment. Even if Cheney were spitting his bit to get into court next month-- and what are the odds of that?-- cooler legal heads surely will prevail. And that means more litigation, if you ask me.
So I don't see the White House allowing this to occur without a fight. What I can imagine, in my mind's eye, is a face-saving deal for both sides in which Cheney allows himself to be deposed beforehand, under oath, with the trial judge presiding over the deposition to resolve some of the thorny questions that always surface when lawyers and a witness meet in a conference room. Then, portions of that deposition, the relevant parts of which presumably will be vetted to ensure that no national security secrets are revealed, would be shown to jurors in court. That's a model that has worked before in these sorts of odd cases where the law and politics meet in the middle. We'll see.
By Andrew Cohen |
December 19, 2006; 4:00 PM ET
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Posted by: what would be more interesting would | December 27, 2006 03:43 PM
The media would do well to re-visit Cheney's (1994?) trial testimony from the A-12 litigation in the US Court of Federal Claims. In defending his decision, as then-Sec Def, to cancel the Navy's stealthy attack plane program, Cheney arguably committed perjury -- either he was lying, or Colin Powell, who also testified in those proceedings, was lying. In any case, Cheney's hyperlegalistic parsing of the difference between canceling the "program" versus canceling the "contract" was downright Clintonian, and his testmony should provide an interesting perspective on any testimony he might give in the Libby case.
Posted by: dclawyer | January 2, 2007 02:08 PM
Just waiting to see if WH will demand that questions for Cheney have to be submitted before-hand and pre-approved, so that answers can be prepared ahead of time, like in questioning about 9/11. Will WH also demand that Cheney not be sworn to oath because of some kind of special "privilege"?
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be the idea that cheney would actually opt to be seen for what he is a dishonest repugnant individual, that cares not a whit orf his country or his gagudhtrer.