Addington shares with Cheney and Libby the view of increasing presidential power

Addington shares with Cheney and Libby the view of increasing presidential power and authority and

setting strict limits on the release of executive branch information to both Congress and the public.

As early as May 2001, Addington was the point person for the White House in deflecting requests by

congressional Democrats and later the General Accounting Office (now named the Government

Accountability Office) for information about the energy policy task force convened by Cheney’s office.

During confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, it was revealed that Addington

helped draft the White House memo that concluded that the Geneva Convention against torture did not

apply to prisoners captured in the war on terror. The memo declared that terrorism “renders obsolete

Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its

provisions.”

Time asks the question;

Some observers wondered last week why a bright lawyer like Libby bothered with a cover story at all.

The indictment offers scant evidence that Libby knew Plame was a covert officer, a key test in the 1982

law barring such disclosures. By that logic, Libby could have told the truth about everything he did

and still avoided criminal exposure.