The Silent Coup - How a nation ruled by law, becomes a nation ruled by men

During the Iran-contra hearings, Addington was heavily involved in arguing that Congress was improperly tying the hands of the president by preventing him from helping Nicaragua's contras.

Addington, 47, was a lawyer and GOP staffer on congressional committees on intelligence and the Iran-contra matter, before Cheney chose him to serve as general counsel at the Pentagon when Cheney was defense secretary. Addington is now chief of staff to Vice President Cheney as he was appointed to replace Lewis "Scooter" Libby as Cheney's chief of staff upon Libby's resignation on October 28, 2005.

Ever since he became Legal Counsel to Vice President Cheney -  Cheney’s legal advisor - Addington picked fights over a multitude of small and large issues to push the lines of presidential authority forward and the right of congress to have oversight and access to information backwards. He led the fight with Congress and environmentalists over access to information about corporations that advised the White House on energy policy. He was instrumental in the series of fights with the Sept. 11 commission and its requests for information. And he was a main backer of the nomination of Pentagon lawyer William J. Haynes II for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Haynes's confirmation became a source of huge friction on Capitol Hill, and after protests from military officers, civil rights groups and others he withdrew his nomination. Addington was also principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects and a prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts.

Cheney and Addington, are arguing that they were defending and reclaiming executive authority, but others argue that they have actually pushed it to new levels. John W. Dean - Former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon – testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Senator Feingold’s proposed senate resolution to censure President George W. Bush

“No presidency that I can find in history has adopted a policy of expanding presidential powers merely for the sake of expanding presidential powers. Presidents in the past who have expanded their powers have done so when pursuing policy objectives. It has been the announced policy of the Bush/Cheney presidency, however, from its outset, to expand presidential power for its own sake, and it continually searched for avenues to do just that, while constantly testing to see how far it can push the limits”

Cheney and Addington became – whether through long-term strategic planning and conspiracy or coincidence- the men who would form the main brain of the battle to rollback this congressional advancement into the executive’s territory. By the time 9/11 happened they had been the mainspring-putting people throughout the government who were working away at making sure that the US political system was wired in the most favorable way. 

By the time of 9/11, they had gathered high-skilled and politically experienced like-minded lawyers. With the 2000 election they manned both the Senate and the House of Representatives with republican majority.

I do not argue that this interpretation of the power of the Presidency is inherently Republican, or even conservative. Republican Senators and Representatives did not necessarily agree but with the White House occupied with Republicans of this particular view point it would have become a matter of breaking party lines, and risking the incumbency, for republican senators and representatives to cross their path. This became especially true when, following the attacks on 9/11, the support for the President became conflated with being patriotic and “with us” in an unforgiving dichotomy that allowed no one to be neutral.   

So – they had the House and the Senate and the White House.  

In the Justice Department a staff of lawyers provided the magic of finding ways of interpreting the law in the favor of their clients.

Anyone having had to settle something like a divorce in court, or even outside court, knows the way the quality of the lawyer can determine the outcome. The 2000 election brought into power the people who felt that presidential power illegally and unconstitutionally had been usurped by Congress, and throughout their time of waiting for the perfect moment they had gathered around them lawyers experienced in both law AND politics, with personal and professional contacts to make use of in the right circles.  

To just take what one wants is theft, the trick was to grab power from the congress to the executive branch and get away with it. The role of all these hand picked lawyers was to make sure that although laws might have to be stretched, and at times interpreted in very creative and novel ways, it would all be legal.

If changes could be accomplished without breaking any laws, then it would be nearly impossible for the opposing party – especially when that party was in minority – to stop or repeal any actions. Furthermore – novel interpretations and pushing of laws would not change the fact that any actions not stopped would become precedents and make that much easier acting in the same way in the future.  

More than just push and use the laws already in place, with the legislative branch new laws could be passed in favor of restoring and maintaining power inequality in the presidency’s favor.

Relying on the law of inertia - prevalent in bureaucracies - it would be very unlikely that a change in majority – regardless of branch – would result in any repealing of these changes.  

These two methods – passing new laws and setting precedents for what the executive branch could do and how laws could be interpreted – made gradual changes to the rules of the political game with the quality to last beyond any change in regime. 

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