David S. Addington - The man in the torture shadows

Last June, I posted Who is "the most powerful person you've never heard of"? and Cheney's Cheney about David S. Addington, Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and former counsel.

As I continue to read the most recent crop of articles about the recently released torture memos, the number one member of the “torture team” appears to me to be David S. Addington.

In the May issue of Vanity Fair, "The Green Light" by Philippe Sands is a must-read if you want to understand the cast of high-level official characters responsible for our country’s use of torture.

There are numerous references to Addington in Sands’s article, including:

1. The authors of the torture memos “were assisted in the drafting by David Addington….”;

2. “The fingerprints of the most senior lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation of the abusive interrogation policies. Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse.

3. “…Addington, Haynes, and Gonzales all objected to Geneva.”

4. “This memo [referring to one of the torture memos] is believed to have been written by Addington, presented a ‘new paradigm’ and described Geneva’s ‘strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners’ as ‘obsolete.’ ”

For me, the most significant piece in Sand’s article is this: “ On September 25, [2002] as the process of elaborating new interrogation techniques reached a critical point, a delegation of the administration’s most senior lawyers arrived at Guantánamo. The group included the president’s lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, who had by then received the Yoo-Bybee Memo; Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, who had contributed to the writing of that memo….. They were all well aware of al-Qahtani [the tortured detainee described in the article]. ‘They wanted to know what we were doing to get to this guy,’ …‘ and Addington was interested in how we were managing it.’….

“Beaver [a military lawyer present at Guantanamo when the torture team appeared] confirmed the account of the visit. Addington talked a great deal, and it was obvious to her that he was a ‘very powerful man’ and ‘definitely the guy in charge,’ with a booming voice and confident style.” [emphasis mine]

I’m a lawyer. I’m wondering when Addington will be disbarred. And will he be susceptible to charges of war crimes if he travels to another country that believes in upholding the Geneva Conventions?

(photo of Addington: Associated Press)

Who is "the most powerful person you've never heard of"?

Yesterday’s post briefly described David S. Addington (photo) as “Cheney’s Cheney.” He’s currently Cheney’s chief of staff, having replaced Scooter Libby after he was indicted, and has been described by U.S. News & World Report as “the most powerful person you’ve never heard of.”

This morning, TalkingPointsMemo.com (TPM) zeroes in on Addington in a post by Spencer Ackerman, confirming my belief that we ordinary citizens ought to know a whole lot more about Addington than we do. (If TPM covers it, it's a big deal).

Ackerman’s post focuses on Cheney’s recent claim that he is outside both the executive and legislative branches, which makes him exempt from review by the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office.

As reported by Ackerman, yesterday Addington, who was Cheney’s chief lawyer before taking on the role of his chief of staff, wrote a letter (pdf) to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) yesterday defending Cheney's asserted exemption from review by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office. Addington posits that the Office of the Vice President is outside the scope of the executive order governing review of how executive branch agencies are supposed to handle classified material because the Office of the Veep is not an "agency."

If you’re not a lawyer or interested in the details, you might not find Ackerman’s explanation of why Addington is wrong, wrong, wrong, interesting. I do, and I’m coming to the conclusion that it is the layer (appointees, such as David Addington, Douglas Feith, and consultants like Michael Ledeen) below the most visible layer (elected or appointed officials such as Cheney, Gonzales, secretaries of cabinets, etc.) in the Executive Branch that is creating and implementing many of the policies that are driving our country over a cliff. Sooner rather than later, I hope Congress wakes up to its oversight responsibilities.

(photo – same one as yesterday's - there aren’t many of Addington available - USNews.com)

David S. Addington - "Cheney's Cheney"

I’m now reading the second in a four-part Washington Post series about Vice President Cheney, which I posted about here.

As I read this article, Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power, I’m noticing that David S. Addington’s name keeps popping up. He’s Cheney’s general counsel and has been described as “Cheney’s Cheney.” In fact, Addington’s name shows up twenty-two times in this article.


My in-depth introduction to David Addington occurred when I read the “The Hidden Power,” by Jane Mayer, published in the July 3, 2006 New Yorker, abstract available here and full article available here.

Mayer’s article is subtitled, “The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror. " It’s worth reading in conjunction with Pushing the Envelope on Presidental Power and the rest of the series in the Washington Post.

The more we know about Cheney and Cheney’s Cheney, the more convinced we will become that we ought not just stand by while this regime has its way with our country.

(photo of Addington – nndb.com)