DAVID ADDINGTON - One Of Baker Donelson's WEAPONS

David Addington
11th Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the
United States
In office
November 1, 2005 – January 20, 2009
Vice President Dick Cheney
Preceded by Scooter Libby
Succeeded by Ron Klain
Personal details
Born David Spears Addington
January 22, 1957
Washington, D.C.
Political party Republican
Alma mater Georgetown University (B.S.)
Duke University (J.D.)
David Addington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Spears Addington (born January 22, 1957) is an American lawyer who was legal
counsel (2001–2005) and Chief of Staff (2005–2009) to Vice President Dick Cheney.[1]
He was the vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage
Foundation from 2010[2][3][4][5] to 2016[6].
During 21 years of federal service, Addington worked at the CIA, the Reagan White
House, the Department of Defense, four congressional committees, and the Cheney
Office of the Vice President.[7] He was appointed to replace I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.
as Cheney's chief of staff upon Libby's resignation when Libby was indicted on charges
of perjury and obstruction of justice on October 28, 2005.[8] Addington was described by
U.S. News & World Report as "the most powerful man you've never heard of" in May
2006.[9]
Contents
1 Family
2 Education and career
3 Vice President's office
4 Spanish charges considered
5 Records
6 References
7 External links
Family
Addington was born in Washington, D.C., and is the son of Eleanore ("Billie") and the
late Jerry Addington, a retired brigadier general and West Point graduate.[10]
As is typical for many families of career military staff, the Addington family moved often
and there were periods during which Jerry was posted overseas while his family remained
stateside. After David's birth in 1957 in Washington, DC, his father was posted to Carlisle
Barracks, PA; Camp St. Barbara, South Korea; Colorado Springs, CO; Oakdale, PA; and
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Young David lived in Saudi Arabia during his father's 1967-1969
assignment as chief of the U.S. Military Training Mission, headquartered in Dhahran. In
this role, the elder Addington (promoted to brigadier general in 1965), was responsible for U.S. training and security assistance programs
for the Royal Saudi Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. During the family's two-year stay in Saudi Arabia, David Addington (then
10 and 11 years old) was a student at the Dhahran Academy on the grounds of the U.S. Consulate.[11]
Addington is married to Cynthia Mary Addington; the couple have three children. Previously, Addington had been married to Linda
Werling, whom he met while the two were both attending Duke University.[12]
Education and career
Addington graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1974. He was admitted to United States Naval Academy
and attended beginning in Fall 1974, but dropped out during his freshman year. He is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University (B.S.F.S., summa cum laude) and holds a J.D. (with honors) from Duke University School of Law.[13] He
was admitted to the bar in 1981.
Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1981 to 1984.[14]
From 1984 to 1987 he was counsel for the House committees on intelligence and foreign affairs. He served as a staff attorney on the joint
U.S. House-Senate committee investigation of the Iran-Contra affair as an assistant to Congressman Bill Broomfield (R-MI). Books and
news articles have said that he was one of the principal authors of a controversial minority report issued at the conclusion of the joint
committee's investigation,[15][16] which "defended President Reagan by claiming it was 'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws
intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'"[17] but in his opening remarks as he testified under subpoena before the House Judiciary
David Addington - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Addington
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Committee, Addington said that he had left the committee's service before the minority report was written and had no role in it.[18]
Addington was also a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's
deputy assistant. From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to Cheney who was then the Secretary of Defense, before being
appointed by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as the Department of Defense's general counsel in 1992.[19] In
1993 and 1994, Addington was the Republican staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In 1994 and 1995, he headed a political
action committee, the Alliance for American Leadership, set up to support Republican candidates for public office, with a principal focus on
being a Presidential exploratory committee for Cheney, as the former Defense Secretary contemplated running for the 1996 Republican
Presidential nomination.[20]
From 1995 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firms Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Holland & Knight,
and the American Trucking Associations.[21] He also provided extensive assistance to Dick Cheney when the latter was chief executive
officer of Halliburton Corporation and was in charge of vetting potential Presidential running mates for Texas governor George W. Bush,
before he was officially his party's nominee for the White House and surprised many political observers by choosing Cheney himself to be
his running mate.[22]
On April 13, 2013, Addington was on a list released by the Russian Federation of Americans banned from entering the country over their
alleged human rights violations. The list was a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list revealed by the United States the day
before.[23]
Vice President's office
As counsel to the Vice President, Addington's duties involved protecting the legal interests of the Office of the Vice President. Although
limited duties have been given under the Constitution, each vice president has a role in association with the president.
As chief of staff, Addington supervised the Vice President's staff. In both roles, Addington also provided advice to the White House staff, as
he had the additional role of Assistant to the President, as his predecessor Scooter Libby had likewise held. As vice presidential counsel,
Addington is known for his focus on the constitutional independence of the Vice President. He tried to protect the inner workings of the
Office of the Vice President from investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and private organizations.[24]
After he began working for Cheney, Addington was influential in numerous policy areas. He provided advice and drafted memoranda on
many of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration.[9] Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on U.S.
foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War in the early
1970s.[25] In his House Judiciary Committee testimony, Addington said that he applied three filters in formulating advice on the War on
Terror: (i) comply with the Constitution, (ii) within the law, maximize the President's options, and (iii) ensure legal protection of military
and intelligence personnel engaged in counterterrorism activities.[26]
Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution, the President has substantial and expansive powers as commander-in-
chief during wartime, if need be.[27] He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements that President George W. Bush issued when
signing bills passed by Congress, expanding the practice relative to other Presidents.[28][29] Charlie Savage, the former national legal affairs
writer for The Boston Globe who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on signing statements, quotes former associate White House counsel
Brad Berenson saying that Addington "would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal" as he crafted the statements.[30][31]
A declassified CIA congressional briefing memo of February 4, 2003 states "The (CIA) General
Counsel described the process by which the (enhanced interrogation) techniques were approved by a
bevy of lawyers from the NSC, the Vice President’s office and the Justice Department," which
makes it likely that Addington was aware of the coercive methods if not one or more of the "torture
memos" as well, although it is not clear exactly what the CIA memo meant by the word 'approved'
as none of the lawyers mentioned was in the chain of command that approves CIA operations and
the White House-level lawyers relied on Justice Department legal opinions rather than developing
and issuing legal opinions of their own.[32] Press reports have alleged that Addington helped to
shape an August 2002 opinion from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that
said torture might be justified in some cases,[33] although John Yoo – who actually wrote those
memos himself – avers in a book he later authored that the notion that Addington "had a hand in
drafting Justice Department legal opinions in the war on terrorism" is "so erroneous as to be
laughable."[34]
U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – at
the same time Addington was Cheney's personal counsel as Secretary of Defense – and then later when Powell was Secretary of State,
stated in an in-depth interview regarding extraordinary measures taken post 9/11: "The man who, to me, brings all of this together more than
Cheney himself, because he has one foot in the legal camp—and I must admit it's a fairly brilliant foot—and he has one foot in the operator
camp, that's David Addington."[35]
David Addington speaking to Vice
President Cheney on September 11,
2001
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Press reports also state that Addington reportedly took a leading role in pressing for the use of
coercive interrogation methods when a delegation of top Bush administration attorneys traveled to
the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in September 2002 to observe operations there,[36] although
Addington said that he could not recall this in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony.[37]
In congressional testimony, Addington has emphasized that "people out in the field, particularly the
folks at the CIA, would not have engaged in their conduct and the head of the CIA would not have
ordered them to engage in that conduct without knowing that the Attorney General of the United
States or his authorized designee, which is what OLC is, has said this is lawful and they relied on
that." [38] The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a narrative concerning the Office of
Legal Counsel opinions on interrogations on April 17, 2009.[39]
Some press reports indicate that Addington advocated scaling back the authority of lawyers in the
uniformed services; Addington in fact advocated merely that the civilian general counsels of the
military departments be recognized as the chief legal officers of those departments.[40]
Shortly after September 26, 2002, a Gulfstream jet carrying Addington, Alberto Gonzales, CIA attorney John A. Rizzo, William Haynes II,
two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher and Patrick F. Philbin, and the Office of Legal Counsel's Jack Goldsmith flew to Camp
Delta to view the facility that held enemy combatants, including Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston, South Carolina to view the
facility that held enemy combatants, including José Padilla, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia, where they briefly viewed an enemy combatant
on a videoscreen display.[41][42]
In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Addington and 15 other current and former
U.S. government officials for alleged war crimes.[43] The German Prosecutor General at the Federal Supreme Court declined to initiate
proceedings on the complaint.[44]
According to Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, Addington once
said that "we're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court," referring to the secret United States Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, which oversees clandestine wiretapping.[45] Goldsmith also noted that Addington was speaking sarcastically at the
time.[46] Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman writes that Addington was the author of the controlling legal and technical documents
for the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program, typing the documents on a Tempest-shielded computer across from his desk
in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and storing them in a vault in his office.[47][48][49] That area of the building was
the site of a fire in December, 2007.[50]
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is alleged to have remarked in private, regarding who was responsible for the NSA wiretapping of
U.S. citizens without a warrant: "It's Addington," and further, that "he doesn't care about the Constitution."[51] when speaking with friends
at a Washington Redskins game. Jack Goldsmith has written that if Powell indeed made this remark, "he was wrong," as Addington and
Cheney "seemed to care passionately about the Constitution as they understood it."[52] Further, it is alleged, at least during Cheney's term as
Secretary of Defense from 1989–93, that Addington and Cheney were deeply and eagerly interested in the U.S. Continuity of Operations
Plan[53] (CO-OP), to be used in the event of a nuclear attack on the U.S. (and first partially implemented after 9/11/01). This plan is alleged
to provide "enduring Constitutional government" under a "paramount unitary executive" with "cooperation from" Congress and the several
Courts. This deep and eager interest in the CO-OP was reported by the New Yorker[54] to extend to drills where Cheney spent his nights in a
bunker, perhaps that "secure undisclosed location" which he was said to occupy following 9/11. Apparently Addington has taken this
interest to the point where "For years, Addington has carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket; taped onto the back are
photocopies of extra statutes that detail the legal procedures for Presidential succession in times of national emergency ..."[55] perhaps, even
a national emergency that involves the CO-OP.
Although press reports state that Addington consistently advocated the expansion of presidential powers and the unitary executive theory, a
nearly absolute deference to the executive branch from Congress and the judiciary, Addington stated in his sworn House Judiciary
Committee testimony that he intends the term "unitary executive" to refer to the provision of the Constitution that vests all "executive
Power" in "a President" rather than in multiple officials or Congress.[56] In a June 26, 2007 letter to Senator John Kerry, Addington asserted
that by virtue of Executive Order 12958 as amended in 2003, the Office of the Vice President was exempt from oversight by the National
Archives' Information Security Oversight Office for its handling of classified materials,[57] which President George W. Bush confirmed to
be the correct interpretation of his revised order.[58] He had previously pushed for elimination of a presidentially-mandated position (as
opposed to at the option of the Archivist) of director of the oversight office after a dispute over oversight of classified information.[59] The
story was broken after the Chicago Tribune noticed an asterisk in an ISOO report "that it contained no information from OVP." Although a
federal district judge initially ordered Addington to submit to a deposition in a lawsuit filed to protect Cheney's vice-presidential records
from potential destruction under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978,[60][61] the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit overruled the federal district judge and held that Addington did not have to submit to the deposition.[62]
Addington, along with other officials, was mentioned by title in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.'s indictment[63] for five felony charges related
to the Plame affair, regarding the leak of the identity of a CIA officer,[64] and he testified at the Libby trial.[65] A PBS Frontline
documentary "Cheney's Law" broadcast on October 16, 2007 detailed Addington's key role in Bush administration policy making, and
noted that he declined to be interviewed regarding his thoughts on the limits of executive privilege.[66] On June 26, 2008, Addington
President Hamid Karzai greeting David
Addington in the Presidential Palace in
Kabul, 2007
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appeared to testify under subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee along with former Justice Department attorney John Yoo in a
contentious hearing on detainee treatment, interrogation methods and the extent of executive branch authority.[67][68][69][70] This testimony
was Addington's only public statement during his eight years as Cheney's vice presidential counsel and chief of staff.[71][72]
Human Rights Watch and The New York Times Editorial board have called for the investigation and prosecution of Addington "for
conspiracy to torture as well as other crimes."[73][74]
Spanish charges considered
In March 2009 Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge who has considered international war crimes charges against other high-profile figures,
considered whether to allow charges made by Gonzalo Boye to be laid against Addington and five other former officials of the George W.
Bush Presidency.[75]
Judge Garzon did not dismiss the complaint, but instead ordered the complaint assigned by lottery to another judge, who will then decide
whether to pursue the complaint or not.[76] Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido "strongly criticized" the proceedings,
labeling them a legal "artifice."[77] Conde-Pumpido recommended against prosecution due to lack of material responsibility on the part of
the American officials.[78]
Records
The Vice Presidential records created or obtained by David S. Addington during his service as Counsel to the Vice President and Chief of
Staff to the Vice President from 2001 to 2009 are preserved and maintained by the Archivist of the United States at the National Archives
under the law.[79]
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59.
"Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus" (http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/093008%20-%20Writ%20of%20Mandamus.pdf) (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 2008-09-30.
60.
"Plaintiff's Opposition to Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus" (http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/Document%2025%20(10-1-08)%20Opposition%20to%20Stay%20of%20Mandamus.pdf) (PDF). United States District Court for the
District of Columbia. 2008-10-01.
61.
In re Richard B. Cheney, Vice President, No. 08-5412 (D.C. Cir. 2008).62.
"Indictment" (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org
/web/20080528062030/http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf) May 28, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine. in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby", United States Department of
Justice, October 28, 2005; accessed February 13, 2011
63.
Daniel Klaidman; Stuart Taylor, Jr.; Evan Thomas (February 6, 2006). "Palace Revolt" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547
/site/newsweek/). Newsweek.
64.
Waas, M., ed., The United States v. I. Lewis Libby, New York: Union Square Press (2007), pp. 174–95.65.
"Cheney's Law" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/). Public Broadcasting System. 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2007-11-07.66.
Dan Eggen (2008-06-27). "Bush Policy Authors Defend Their Actions" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article
/2008/06/26/AR2008062601966_pf.html). The Washington Post.
67.
Scott Shane (2008-06-27). "Two Testify on Memo Spelling Out Interrogation" (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington
/27hearing.html). The New York Times.
68.
Dana Milbank (2008-06-27). "When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish and Short" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062603456_pf.html). The Washington Post.
69.
video (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/27/addington_yoo_offer_little_in_house)70.
GPO text of hearing (https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg43152/html/CHRG-110hhrg43152.htm)71.
Cong., 2d Sess., (June 26, 2008)
72.
"No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture" (https://www.hrw.org/node/283564). hrw.org. Human Rights Watch.
73.
"Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html).
The New York Times. 2014-12-21. Retrieved 2015-04-17.
74.
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"Spain may decide Guantanamo probe this week" (https://web.archive.org/web/20090426200038/http://in.reuters.com/article
/domesticNews/idINLT53678920090329?sp=true). Reuters. 2009-03-28. Archived from the original on 2009-04-26. Retrieved
2009-03-29.
75.
Spanish Judge Keeps Guantanamo Probe Alive (https://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLH62645), (April 7, 2009).76.
Spain's Attorney General Opposes Prosecutions of 6 Bush Officials on Allowing Torture (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04
/17/world/europe/17spain.html?ref=world), April 16, 2009
77.
Spain Attorney General Against Guantanamo Probe (https://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE53F1L620090416), (April
16, 2009).
78.
44 U.S.C. 220779.
External links
"Pushing the Limit on Presidential Powers," by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters
/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html), The Washington Post, Monday, June 25, 2007
"The Hidden Power," by Jane Mayer (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1), profile of David Addington in
the July 3, 2006, issue of The New Yorker magazine.
The New Yorker magazine Q&A with Jane Mayer about her David Addington article (http://www.newyorker.com/online/content
/articles/060703on_onlineonly01)
Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview of Jane Mayer about her David Addington article (http://www.npr.org/templates/story
/story.php?storyId=5535251) July 5, 2006
David Addington's campaign contributions (https://web.archive.org/web/20060329074002/http://www.newsmeat.com
/washington_political_donations/David_Addington.php)
Appearances (https://www.c-span.org/person/?davidaddington) on C-SPAN
'Democracy Now!' coverage of Addington's appointment as chief of staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney and his role in the
expansion of presidential power (https://web.archive.org/web/20051103194413/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05
/11/01/1518210)
Meet David Addington: Cheney's Guy (https://web.archive.org/web/20060602004312/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles
/060529/29addington.htm)
"50 Most Powerful People in D.C." (https://web.archive.org/web/20070930211012/http://men.style.com/gq/features
/full?id=content_5843&pageNum=2), GQ Magazine, August, 2007
December 12, 2002 letter from Addington as OVP general counsel to operator of parody website (http://whitehouse.georgewbush.org
/administration/love_letter.asp)
The Man Behind the Torture (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20858), New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 19,
December 6, 2007.
Madness and Shame (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/opinion/22herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), New York Times, July 22,
2008.
Reports and commentaries by David Addington (http://www.heritage.org/research/all-research?author_id={1915A783-7984-4396-
B581-D5AFE2EBD1E6}), The Heritage Foundation
Political offices
Preceded by
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.
Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United
States
2005–2009
Succeeded by
Ronald Klain
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Addington&oldid=795744270"
This page was last edited on 16 August 2017, at 05:35.
7 of 7 8/22/17, 8:46 PM

David Addington
11th Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the
United States
In office
2005–2009
Vice President Dick Cheney
Preceded by Scooter Libby
Succeeded by Ron Klain
Personal details
Born David Spears Addington
January 22, 1957
Washington, D.C.
Alma mater Georgetown University B.S.F.S.
Duke Law School J.D.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Spears Addington (born January 22, 1957) was legal counsel (2001–2005) and chief of staff
(2005–2009) to former Vice President Dick Cheney,[1]
and is now vice president of domestic and
economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.[2][3][4][5]
During 21 years of federal service, Addington worked at the CIA, the Reagan White House, the
Department of Defense, four congressional committees, and the Cheney Office of the Vice
President.[6]
He was appointed to replace I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. as Cheney's chief of staff upon
Libby's resignation when Libby was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on
October 28, 2005.[7]
Addington was described by U.S. News & World Report as "the most powerful
man you've never heard of" in May 2006.[8]
Contents
1 Family
2 Education and career
3 Vice President's office
4 Spanish charges considered
5 Records
6 References
7 External links
Family
Addington was born in Washington, D.C., and is the son of Eleanore and the late Jerry Addington, a
retired brigadier general and West Point graduate.[9]
He is married to Cynthia Mary Addington; the
couple have three children. Previously, Addington had been married to Linda Werling, whom he met
while the two were both attending Duke University.[10]
Education and career
Addington graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1974. He was
admitted to United States Naval Academy and attended beginning in Fall 1974, but did not graduate. He is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown University (B.S.F.S., summa cum laude) and holds a J.D. (with honors) from Duke University School of Law.[11]
He was
admitted to the bar in 1981.
Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1981 to 1984.[12]
From 1984 to 1987 he was counsel for the House
committees on intelligence and foreign affairs. He served as a staff attorney on the joint U.S. House-Senate committee investigation of the Iran-Contra
scandal as an assistant to Congressman Bill Broomfield (R-MI). Books and news articles have said that he was one of the principal authors of a
controversial minority report issued at the conclusion of the joint committee's investigation,[13][14]
which "defended President Reagan by claiming it was
'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'"[15]
but in his opening remarks as he testified under subpoena before
the House Judiciary Committee, Addington said that he had left the committee's service before the minority report was written and had no role in it.[16]
Addington was also a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's deputy
assistant. From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to Cheney who was then the Secretary of Defense, before being appointed by
President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as the Department of Defense's general counsel in 1992.[17]
In 1993 and 1994, Addington
was the Republican staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In 1994 and 1995, he headed a political action committee, the Alliance for
American Leadership, set up to support Republican candidates for public office, with a principal focus on being a Presidential exploratory committee for
Cheney, as the former Defense Secretary contemplated running for the 1996 Republican Presidential nomination.[18]
From 1995 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firms Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Holland & Knight, and the
American Trucking Association.[19]
He also provided extensive assistance to Dick Cheney when the latter was chief executive officer of Halliburton
Corporation and was in charge of vetting potential Presidential running mates for Texas governor George W. Bush, before he was officially his party's
nominee for the White House and surprised many political observers by choosing Cheney himself to be his running mate.[20]
Vice President's office
As counsel to the Vice President, Addington's duties involved protecting the purported legal interests of the Office of the Vice President, despite the only
David Addington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Addington
1 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

duties actually given the U.S. Vice President under the United States Constitution are to be first in line to succeed the President in the event of his or her
death, or a statutorily-defined inability to effectively discharge the powers of the office, and to be the presiding officer of the United States Senate, with
the duty to cast a deciding vote in that body in the event of any tie votes among the members of the Senate itself.
As chief of staff, he supervised the Vice President's staff. In both roles, Addington also provided advice to the White House staff, as he had the
additional bureaucratically important title of Assistant to the President, as his predecessor Scooter Libby had likewise held. As vice presidential counsel,
Addington is known for his focus on the constitutional independence of the Vice President[citation needed]
, including in the context of federal lawsuits to
prevent incursions into the inner workings of the Office of the Vice President by the Government Accountability Office and private organizations.[21]
After he began working for Vice President Cheney, Addington was very influential in many different areas of policy. He provided advice and drafted
memoranda on many of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration.[8]
Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on U.S.
foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.[22]
In his
House Judiciary Committee testimony, Addington said that he applied three filters in formulating advice on the War on Terror: (i) comply with the
Constitution, (ii) within the law, maximize the President's options, and (iii) ensure legal protection of military and intelligence personnel engaged in
counterterrorism activities.[23]
Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution, the President has substantial and expansive powers as commander-in-chief during
wartime, if need be.[24]
He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements that President George W. Bush issued when signing bills passed by
Congress, expanding the practice relative to other Presidents.[25][26]
Charlie Savage, the former national legal affairs writer for The Boston Globe who
won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on signing statements, quotes former associate White House counsel Brad Berenson saying that Addington "would
dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal" as he crafted the statements.[27][28]
A declassified CIA congressional briefing memo of February 4, 2003 states "The (CIA) General Counsel described the process by which the (enhanced
interrogation) techniques were approved by a bevy of lawyers from the NSC, the Vice President’s office and the Justice Department," which makes it
likely that Addington was aware of the coercive methods if not one or more of the "torture memos" as well, although it is not clear exactly what the CIA
memo meant by the word 'approved' as none of the lawyers mentioned was in the chain of command that approves CIA operations and the White
House-level lawyers relied on Justice Department legal opinions rather than developing and issuing legal opinions of their own.[29]
Press reports have
alleged that Addington helped to shape an August 2002 opinion from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that said torture might
be justified in some cases,[30]
although John Yoo - who actually wrote those memos himself - avers in a book he later authored that the notion that
Addington "had a hand in drafting Justice Department legal opinions in the war on terrorism" is "so erroneous as to be laughable."[31]
U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - at the same
time Addington was Cheney's personal counsel as Secretary of Defense - and then later when Powell was Secretary of State, stated in an in-depth
interview regarding extraordinary measures taken post 9/11: "...the man who, to me, brings all of this together more than Cheney himself, because he has
one foot in the legal camp — and I must admit it’s a fairly brilliant foot — and he has one foot in the operator camp, that’s David Addington."[32]
Press reports also state that Addington reportedly took a leading role in pressing for the use of coercive interrogation methods when a delegation of top
Bush administration attorneys traveled to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in September 2002 to observe operations there,[33]
although Addington
said that he could not recall this in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony.[34]
In congressional testimony, Addington has emphasized that
"people out in the field, particularly the folks at the CIA, would not have engaged in their conduct and the head of the CIA would not have ordered them
to engage in that conduct without knowing that the Attorney General of the United States or his authorized designee, which is what OLC is, has said this
is lawful and they relied on that." [35]
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a narrative concerning the Office of Legal Counsel opinions
on interrogations on April 17, 2009.[36]
Some press reports indicate that Addington advocated scaling back the authority of lawyers in the uniformed services; Addington in fact advocated
merely that the civilian general counsels of the military departments be recognized as the chief legal officers of those departments.[37]
Shortly after September 26, 2002, a Gulfstream jet carrying Addington, Alberto Gonzales, CIA attorney John A. Rizzo, William Haynes II, two Justice
Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher and Patrick F. Philbin, and the Office of Legal Counsel's Jack Goldsmith flew to Camp Delta to view the facility
that held enemy combatants, including Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston, South Carolina to view the facility that held enemy combatants,
including José Padilla, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia, where they briefly viewed an enemy combatant on a videoscreen display.[38][39]
In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Addington and 15 other current and former U.S.
government officials for alleged war crimes.[40]
The German Prosecutor General at the Federal Supreme Court declined to initiate proceedings on the
complaint.[41]
According to Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, Addington once said that
"we're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court," referring to the secret United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which
oversees clandestine wiretapping. [42]
Goldsmith also noted that Addington was speaking sarcastically at the time.[43]
Washington Post reporter Barton
Gellman writes that Addington was the author of the controlling legal and technical documents for the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance
program, typing the documents on a Tempest-shielded computer across from his desk in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and
storing them in a vault in his office.[44]
That area of the building was the site of a fire in December, 2007.[45]
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is alleged to have remarked in private, regarding who was responsible for the NSA wiretapping of U.S. citizens
without a warrant: "It's Addington," and further, that "he doesn't care about the Constitution." [46]
when speaking with friends at a Washington Redskins
game. Jack Goldsmith has written that if Powell indeed made this remark, "he was wrong," as Addington and Cheney "seemed to care passionately
2 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

about the Constitution as they understood it."[47]
Further, it is alleged, at least during Cheney's term as Secretary of Defense from 1989–93, that
Addington and Cheney were deeply and eagerly interested in the U.S. Continuity of Operations Plan [48]
(CO-OP), to be used in the event of a nuclear
attack on the U.S. (and first partially implemented after 9/11/01). This plan is alleged to provide "enduring Constitutional government" under a
"paramount unitary executive" with "cooperation from" Congress and the several Courts. This deep and eager interest in the CO-OP was reported by the
New Yorker[49]
to extend to drills where Cheney spent his nights in a bunker, perhaps that "secure undisclosed location" which he was said to occupy
following 9/11. Apparently Addington has taken this interest to the point where "For years, Addington has carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his
pocket; taped onto the back are photocopies of extra statutes that detail the legal procedures for Presidential succession in times of national
emergency..."[50]
perhaps, even a national emergency that involves the CO-OP.
Although press reports state that Addington consistently advocated the expansion of presidential powers and the unitary executive theory, a nearly
absolute deference to the executive branch from Congress and the judiciary, Addington stated in his sworn House Judiciary Committee testimony that he
intends the term "unitary executive" to refer to the provision of the Constitution that vests all "executive Power" in "a President" rather than in multiple
officials or Congress.[51]
In a June 26, 2007 letter to Senator John Kerry, Addington asserted that by virtue of Executive Order 12958 as amended in
2003, the Office of the Vice President was exempt from oversight by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office for its handling of
classified materials,[52]
which President George W. Bush confirmed to be the correct interpretation of his revised order.[53]
He had previously pushed
for elimination of a presidentially-mandated position (as opposed to at the option of the Archivist) of director of the oversight office after a dispute over
oversight of classified information.[54]
The story was broken after the Chicago Tribune noticed an asterisk in an ISOO report "that it contained no
information from OVP". Although a federal district judge initially ordered Addington to submit to a deposition in a lawsuit filed to protect Cheney's
vice-presidential records from potential destruction under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978,[55] [56]
the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overruled the federal district judge and held that Addington did not have to submit to the deposition.[57]
Addington, along with other officials, was mentioned by title in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.'s indictment[58]
for five felony charges related to the Plame
affair, regarding the leak of the identity of a CIA officer,[59]
and he testified at the Libby trial.[60]
A PBS Frontline documentary "Cheney's Law"
broadcast on October 16, 2007 detailed Addington's key role in Bush administration policy making, and noted that he declined to be interviewed
regarding his thoughts on the limits of executive privilege.[61]
On June 26, 2008, Addington appeared to testify under subpoena from the House
Judiciary Committee along with former Justice Department attorney John Yoo in a contentious hearing on detainee treatment, interrogation methods and
the extent of executive branch authority.[62][63][64]video (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/27/addington_yoo_offer_little_in_house)
This testimony was
Addington's only public statement during his eight years as Cheney's vice presidential counsel and chief of staff.[65]
Spanish charges considered
In March 2009 Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge who has considered international war crimes charges against other high-profile figures, considered
whether to allow charges made by Gonzalo Boye, a lawyer who once defended MIR and ETA,[66]
to be laid against Addington and five other former
officials of the George W. Bush Presidency.[67]
Judge Garzon did not dismiss the complaint, but instead ordered the complaint assigned by lottery to
another judge, who will then decide whether to pursue the complaint or not.[68]
Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido "strongly criticized"
the proceedings, labeling them a legal "artifice."[69]
Pumpido recommended against prosecution due to lack of material responsibility on the part of the
American officials.[70]
Main article: The Bush Six
Records
The Vice Presidential records created or obtained by David S. Addington during his service as Counsel to the Vice President and Chief of Staff to the
Vice President from 2001 to 2009 are preserved and maintained by the Archivist of the United States at the National Archives under the law.[71]
References
^ Dreyfuss, Robert (2006-04-17). "Vice Squad" (http://www.prospect.org
/cs/articles?articleId=11423) . The American Prospect.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11423. Retrieved
2008-06-29.
1.
^ Heilbrunn, Jacob (2010-08-30). "David Addington's Return to Power"
(http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/david-addingtons-return-
power-3990) . The National Interest. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-
heilbrunn/david-addingtons-return-power-3990. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
2.
^ Friedersdorf, Conor (2010-08-31). "Making a Mockery of Advocating
Limited Government" (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish
/2010/08/making-a-mockery-of-advocating-limited-government.html) . The
Atlantic. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/08
/making-a-mockery-of-advocating-limited-government.html. Retrieved
2011-03-31.
3.
^ Goldsmith, Jack (2010-09-06). "Addington to Heritage"
(http://www.lawfareblog.com/2010/09/addington-to-heritage/) . Lawfare.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2010/09/addington-to-heritage/. Retrieved
2011-03-31.
4.
^ Victor, Kirk (May, 2011). "David S. Addington: A Second Act"
(http://www.washingtonian.com/print/articles/6/174/19154.html) .
Washingtonian. http://www.washingtonian.com/print/articles/6/174
/19154.html. Retrieved 2011-08-09.
5.
^ Statement by the Vice President (http://georgewbush-
whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/10/print/20051031-2.html) ,
Office of the Vice President (October 31, 2005) (announcement of
Addington's appointment to be Chief of Staff to the Vice President).
6.
^ Keith Olbermann (November 4, 2005). "Cheney's new chief of staff
controversial" (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9917435/) . MSNBC.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9917435/.
7.
^ a b
Chitra Ragavan (May 29, 2006). "Cheney's Guy"
(http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington.htm) .
U.S. News and World Report. http://www.usnews.com/usnews
/news/articles/060529/29addington.htm.
8.
^ Letter from Washington: The Hidden Power: The New Yorker
(http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07
9.
3 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

^ Letter from Washington: The Hidden Power: The New Yorker
10.
^ Statement by President Reagan (http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives
/speeches/1988/041888f.htm) , April 18, 1988 (announcement of
Addington's appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President for
Legislative Affairs).
11.
^ Blumenthal, Sidney (2007). "The sad decline of Michael Mukasey"
(http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/11/01/mukasey/print.html)
. Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/11
/01/mukasey/print.html. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
12.
^ Mr. Cheney's Minority Report (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07
/09/opinion/09wilentz.html?pagewanted=all) by Sean Wilentz, July 9, 2007,
New York Times.
13.
^ Khanna, Satyam (2007-10-09) Charlie Savage: Cheney Plotted Bush’s
Imperial Presidency ‘Thirty Years Ago’ (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10
/09/savage-cheney/) , ThinkProgress
14.
^ Greenwald, Glenn (2011-03-31) Obama's new view of his own war
powers (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03
/31/executive_power/index.html) , Salon.com
15.
^ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties,
Hearing on "From the Department of Justice to Guantanamo Bay:
Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules (Part III),"
(http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th/43152.PDF) Serial No.
110-189, 110th Cong., 2d Sess., (June 26, 2008), p. 7.
16.
^ Charlie Savage (2006-11-26). "Hail to the chief: Dick Cheney's mission
to expand - or 'restore' - the powers of the presidency"
(http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/11
/26/hail_to_the_chief/?page=5) . The Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/11
/26/hail_to_the_chief/?page=5. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
17.
^ Hagan, Joe (March 7, 2010), The Cheney Government in Exile
(http://nymag.com/news/politics/64601/) , New York Magazine,
http://nymag.com/news/politics/64601/
18.
^ Murray Waas; Paul Singer (October 30, 2005). "Addington's Role In
Cheney's Office Draws Fresh Attention" (http://nationaljournal.com/about
/njweekly/stories/2005/1030nj1.htm) . National Journal.
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1030nj1.htm.
19.
^ Horton, Scott (September 18, 2008). "Six Questions for Bart Gellman,
Author of Angler" (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/09/hbc-90003554)
. Harper's Magazine. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/09
/hbc-90003554. Retrieved September 13, 2010.
20.
^ Walker v. Cheney, 230 F. Supp. 2d 51 (D.D.C. 2002) (GAO); Cheney v.
U.S. District Court, 542 U.S. 367 (2004) and In re Cheney, 406 F.3d 723
(D.C. Cir. 2005) (Judicial Watch); In re Richard B. Cheney, Vice President,
No. 08-5412 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington).
21.
^ Jane Mayer, "The Hidden Power" (http://www.newyorker.com
/fact/content/articles/060703fa_fact1) , The New Yorker, July 3, 2006.
Archived (http://www.webcitation.org/5LenPhMhu) 4 January 2007 at
WebCite
22.
23.
^ Dana Milbank (2004-10-11). "In Cheney's Shadow, Counsel Pushes the
Conservative Cause" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-
dyn/A22665-2004Oct10?language=printer) . The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-
dyn/A22665-2004Oct10?language=printer.
24.
^ Statement of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michelle Boardman
before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Presidential Signing Statements
(http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_hr/062706boardman.html) , (June
27, 2006)
25.
^ Presidential Memorandum to Heads of Executive Departments and
Agencies on Presidential Signing Statements (http://www.whitehouse.gov
/the_press_office/Memorandum-on-Presidential-Signing-Statements/) ,
(March 9, 2009).
26.
^ Emily Brazelon (2007-11-18). "All the President’s Powers"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/books/review/Bazelon-
t.html?pagewanted=print) . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com
/2007/11/18/books/review/Bazelon-t.html?pagewanted=print. Retrieved
27.
2007-11-18.
^ Robin Lindley (2008-01-07). "The Return of the Imperial Presidency: An
Interview with Charlie Savage" (http://hnn.us/articles/44951.html) . History
News Network. http://hnn.us/articles/44951.html. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
28.
^ "David Addington did approve of cruel CIA interrogation techniques"
(http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=2809) . Unbossed.com.
http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=2809. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
29.
^ Douglas Jehl; Tim Golden (November 2, 2005). "In Cheney's New Chief,
a Bureaucratic Master" (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/politics
/02aide.html?pagewanted=print) . New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/politics
/02aide.html?pagewanted=print.
30.
^ Yoo, J., War by Other Means (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006),
pp. 33, 169.
31.
^ Andy Worthington (August 24, 2009). "An Interview with Col. Lawrence
Wilkerson, Part 2" (http://www.fff.org/comment/com0909b.asp) . The
Future of Freedom Foundation. http://www.fff.org/comment/com0909b.asp.
Retrieved March 7, 2011.
32.
^ Phillipe Sands (May 2008). "The Green Light"
(http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05
/guantanamo200805?printable=true&currentPage=all) . Vanity Fair.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05
/guantanamo200805?printable=true&currentPage=all. Retrieved
2008-06-16.
33.
110-189, 110th Cong., 2d Sess., (June 26, 2008), pp. 56-57.
34.
35.
^ Letter from Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. to Senator John. D.
Rockefeller IV (http://intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/olcopinion.pdf) of the
SSCI forwarding declassified narrative, (April 17, 2009).
36.
^ Nominations Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Second
Session, 102d Congress, Committee on Armed Services (Hearing on
nomination of David S. Addington to be General Counsel of the
Department of Defense), (July 1, 1992), pp. 322-329.
37.
^ Mayer, Jane, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror
Turned Into a War on American Ideals", 2008. p. 199.
38.
^ Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the
Bush Administration, pp. 100-01.
39.
^ "German War Crimes Complaint Against Donald Rumsfeld, et al."
(http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/german-war-crimes-complaint-
against-donald-rumsfeld,-et-al.) . Center for Constitutional Rights.
http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/german-war-crimes-complaint-
against-donald-rumsfeld,-et-al.. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
40.
^ Prosecutor General at the Federal Supreme Court, Re: Criminal
Complaint against Donald Rumsfeld et al. (http://ccrjustice.org/files
/ProsecutorsDecision.pdf) , 3 ARP 156/06-2, (April 5, 2007).
41.
^ Jeffrey Rosen (2007-09-07). "Conscience of a Conservative"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09rosen.html) . The New
York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09rosen.html.
42.
^ Goldsmith, Jack. The Terror Presidency. New York: W.W. Norton
(2007), p. 181.
43.
^ Barton Gelman (2008-09-14). "Conflict Over Spying Led White House to
Brink" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09
/13/AR2008091302284_pf.html) . The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09
/13/AR2008091302284_pf.html.
44.
^ Lyons, Patrick (December 19, 2007). "Fire In a White House Office
Building" (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/fire-in-office-
building-next-to-white-house/) . New York Times.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/fire-in-office-building-next-to-
white-house/. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
45.
^ Jane Mayer (2006-06-03). "The Hidden Power"
/03/060703fa_fact1?printable=true) . The New Yorker. p. 1.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07
/03/060703fa_fact1?printable=true. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
46.
4 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

^ Goldsmith, Jack. The Terror Presidency. New York: W.W. Norton
(2007), p. 88.
47.
^ Jane Mayer (2006-06-03). "The Hidden Power"
/03/060703fa_fact1?printable=true) . The New Yorker. p. 5.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07
/03/060703fa_fact1?printable=true. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
48.
^ (ibid, p.5)49.
^ (ibid, p. 1)50.
110-189, 110th Cong., 2d Sess., (June 26, 2008), p. 44-45.
51.
^ Addington and the Question of Intent (http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy
/2007/06/addington_and_the_question_of_.html) , in Secrecy News,
published by the Federation of American Scientists, June 28, 2007.
52.
^ Letter from Fred F. Fielding, Counsel to the President, to Senator Sam
Brownback (http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/olc072007.pdf) , (July 12, 2007).
53.
^ Michael Isikoff (2007-12-24). "Challenging Cheney"
(http://www.newsweek.com/id/81883/output/print) . Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81883/output/print. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
54.
^ "Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus"
(http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/093008%20-%20Writ%20of%20Mandamus.pdf) (PDF). United States
District Court for the District of Columbia. 2008-09-30.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/093008%20-%20Writ%20of%20Mandamus.pdf.
55.
^ "Plaintiff's Opposition to Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus"
(http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/Document%2025%20(10-1-08)%20Opposition%20to%20Stay%20of%20
Mandamus.pdf) (PDF). United States District Court for the District of
Columbia. 2008-10-01. http://www.citizensforethics.org/files
/Document%2025%20(10-1-08)%20Opposition%20to%20Stay%20of%20
Mandamus.pdf.
56.
^ In re Richard B. Cheney, Vice President, No. 08-5412 (D.C. Cir. 2008).57.
^ "Indictment" (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents
/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf) in United States of America vs. I. Lewis
Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby", United States Department of
Justice, October 28, 2005; accessed February 13, 2011
58.
^ Daniel Klaidman; Stuart Taylor, Jr., and Evan Thomas (February 6,
2006). "Palace Revolt" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547
/site/newsweek/) . Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547
/site/newsweek/.
59.
^ Waas, M., ed., The United States v. I. Lewis Libby, New York: Union
Square Press (2007), pp. 174-195.
60.
^ "Cheney's Law" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/) .
Public Broadcasting System. 2007-10-16. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages
/frontline/cheney/. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
61.
^ Dan Eggen (2008-06-27). "Bush Policy Authors Defend Their Actions"
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06
/26/AR2008062601966_pf.html.
62.
^ Scott Shane (2008-06-27). "Two Testify on Memo Spelling Out
Interrogation" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington
/27hearing.html) . The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06
/27/washington/27hearing.html.
63.
^ Dana Milbank (2008-06-27). "When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish
and Short" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06
/26/AR2008062603456_pf.html.
64.
110-189, 110th Cong., 2d Sess., (June 26, 2008)
65.
^ McCarthy, Andrew C., Spain's Universal Jurisdiction Power Play
(http://article.nationalreview.com
/?q=Y2NjYTNjM2U4OWEyNDI1ZWRiMDhmMGEyNGYxYjE2N2U=) ,
National Review (March 31, 2009)
66.
^ "Spain may decide Guantanamo probe this week" (http://in.reuters.com
/article/domesticNews/idINLT53678920090329?sp=true) . Reuters.
2009-03-28. http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews
/idINLT53678920090329?sp=true. Retrieved 2009-03-29. mirror
(http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F
%2Fin.reuters.com%2Farticle%2FdomesticNews%2FidINLT536789200903
date=2009-03-30)
67.
^ Spanish Judge Keeps Guantanamo Probe Alive (http://www.reuters.com
/article/latestCrisis/idUSLH62645) , (April 7, 2009).
68.
^ Spain's Attorney General Opposes Prosecutions of 6 Bush Officials on
Allowing Torture (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/europe
/17spain.html?ref=world) , April 16, 2009
69.
^ Spain Attorney General Against Guantanamo Probe
(http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE53F1L620090416) ,
(April 16, 2009).
70.
^ 44 U.S.C. 220771.
External links
"Pushing the Limit on Presidential Powers," by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters
/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html) , The Washington Post, Monday, June 25, 2007
"The Hidden Power," by Jane Mayer (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1) , profile of David Addington in the July 3,
2006, issue of The New Yorker magazine.
The New Yorker magazine Q&A with Jane Mayer about her David Addington article (http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles
/060703on_onlineonly01)
Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview of Jane Mayer about her David Addington article (http://www.npr.org/templates/story
/story.php?storyId=5535251) July 5, 2006
David Addington's campaign contributions (http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/David_Addington.php)
'Democracy Now!' coverage of Addington's appointment as chief of staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney and his role in the expansion of
presidential power (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/01/1518210)
Meet David Addington: Cheney's Guy (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington.htm)
"50 Most Powerful People in D.C." (http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5843&pageNum=2) , GQ Magazine, August, 2007
December 12, 2002 letter from Addington as OVP general counsel to operator of parody website (http://whitehouse.georgewbush.org
/administration/love_letter.asp)
The Man Behind the Torture (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20858) , New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 19, December 6, 2007.
Madness and Shame (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/opinion/22herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) , New York Times, July 22, 2008.
Reports and commentaries by David Addington (http://www.heritage.org/research/all-research?author_id={1915A783-7984-4396-
B581-D5AFE2EBD1E6}) , The Heritage Foundation
Political offices
Preceded by
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.
Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
2005–2009
Succeeded by
Ronald Klain
5 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Addington&oldid=505735476"
Categories: 1957 births Living people Duke University alumni Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service alumni
George W. Bush Administration personnel George H. W. Bush administration personnel Heritage Foundation
People of the Central Intelligence Agency Reagan Administration personnel United States presidential advisors Washington, D.C. lawyers
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6 of 6 8/23/2012 9:43 PM

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In the White House
Emergency Operations
Center, 9/11. Addington is
standing at rear.
DAVID BOHRER--THE WHITE
HOUSE
Cheney's Guy
He's barely known outside Washington's corridors of power, but David
Addington is the most powerful man you've never heard of. Here's why:
By Chitra Ragavan
Posted 5/21/06
One week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush briefly turned his
gaze away from the unfolding crisis to an important but far less pressing moment in the nation's
history. The president signed legislation creating a commission to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling desegregating public
schools. In a brief statement, Bush invited the various educational groups listed in the legislation
to suggest the names of potential commissioners and also urged members of Congress to weigh
in, as a "matter of comity." But in a little-noted aside, Bush said that any such suggestions would
be just that--because under the appointments clause of the Constitution, it was his job, and his
alone, to make those kinds of decisions.
This was what is known, in the cloistered world of constitutional
lawyers and scholars, as a "signing statement." Such statements, in
the years before President Bush and his aides moved into the White
House, were rare. A signing statement is a legal memorandum in
which the president and his lawyers take legislation sent over by
Congress and put their stamp on it by saying what they believe the
measure does and doesn't allow. Consumed by the 9/11 attacks,
Americans for the most part didn't realize that the signing statement
accompanying the announcement of the Brown v. Board
commission would signal one of the most controversial hallmarks of
the Bush presidency: a historic shift in the balance of power away
from the legislative branch of government to the executive. The shift began soon after Bush took
office and reached its apogee after 9/11, with Bush's authorization of military tribunals for
terrorism suspects, secret detentions and aggressive interrogations of "unlawful enemy
combatants," and warrantless electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects on U.S. soil, including
American citizens.
The "invisible hand." Much of the criticism that has been directed at these measures has
focused on Vice President Dick Cheney. In fact, however, it is a largely anonymous government
David Addington is the most powerful man you've never heard of. Here's... http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington_print.htm
1 of 12

lawyer, who now serves as Cheney's chief of staff, who has served as the ramrod driving the
Bush administration's most secretive and controversial counterterrorism measures through the
bureaucracy. David Addington was a key advocate of the Brown v. Board and more than 750
other signing statements the administration has issued since taking office--a record that far
outstrips that of any other president.
The signing statements are just one tool that Addington and a small cadre of ultraconservative
lawyers at the heart of the Bush administration are employing to prosecute the war on terrorism.
Little known outside the West Wing and the inner sanctums of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the
State Department, Addington is a genial colleague who also possesses an explosive temper that
he does not hesitate to direct at those who oppose him. Addington, says an admiring former
White House official, is "the most powerful person no one has never heard of."
Name one significant action taken by the Bush White House after 9/11, and chances are better
than even that Addington had a role in it. So ubiquitous is he that one Justice Department
lawyer calls Addington "Adam Smith's invisible hand" in national security matters. The White
House assertion--later proved false--that Saddam Hussein tried to buy nuclear precursors from
Niger to advance a banned weapons program? Addington helped vet that. The effort to discredit
a former ambassador who publicly dismissed the Niger claim as baseless, by disclosing the name
of his wife, a covert CIA officer? Addington was right in the middle of that, too, though he has
not been accused of wrongdoing.
In national security circles, Addington is viewed as such a force of nature that one former
government lawyer nicknamed him "Keyser Soze," after the ruthless crime boss in the thriller
The Usual Suspects. "He seems to have his hand in everything," says a former Justice
Department official, "and he has these incredible powers, energy, reserves in an obsessive,
zealot's kind of way." Addington declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.
Addington's admirers say he is being demonized unfairly. "This is a new war, an unconventional
war," says an informal Cheney adviser, Mary Matalin. "When you are making new policy to meet
new challenges, you are going to get vicious opposition."
Few would have predicted that Addington, 49, would become such a lightning rod. Tall,
bearded, and imposing, Addington has the look, says former White House associate counsel
Bradford Berenson, of "a rumpled bureaucrat crossed with a CIA spook." The son of a career
military official, Addington was born and raised in the nation's capital and was in the eighth or
ninth grade when he read Catherine Drinker Bowen's Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the
Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787.
2 of 12

"The next battlefield." Thus began a lifelong love affair with the U.S. Constitution. Even
today, Addington carries a copy in his pocket and doesn't hesitate to wield it to back up his
arguments. "The joke around here," says a senior congressional staffer with a chuckle, "is that
Addington looks at the Constitution and sees only Article II, the power of the presidency."
Berenson, Bush's former associate counsel, says that's because Addington is so intensely security
minded: "He's absolutely convinced of the threat we face. And he believes that the executive
branch is the only part of the government capable of securing the public against external
threats." Addington, Berenson adds, is a national security conservative with a twist. "He's not the
intellectual legal conservative of the Federalist Society type," Berenson says, referring to the
group of conservative lawyers esteemed by the likes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia,
"for whom judicial restraint is the holy grail. He's much more of a Cold War conservative who
has moved on to the next battlefield."
Addington began his government career 25 years ago, after graduating summa cum laude from
the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and with honors from the Duke University
Law School. He started out as an assistant general counsel at the CIA and soon moved to Capitol
Hill and served as the minority's counsel and chief counsel on the House intelligence and
foreign affairs committees. There, he began his long association with Cheney, then a Wyoming
congressman and member of the intelligence panel. Addington and Cheney--who served as
President Gerald Ford's chief of staff--shared the same grim worldview: Watergate, Vietnam,
and later, the Iran-contra scandal during President Reagan's second term had all dangerously
eroded the powers of the presidency. "Addington believes that through sloppy lawyering as
much as through politics," says former National Security Council deputy legal adviser Bryan
Cunningham, "the executive branch has acquiesced to encroachment of its constitutional
authority by Congress."
When Cheney became ranking Republican on the House select committee investigating the
Iran-contra scandal, Addington helped write the strongly worded minority report that said the
law barring aid to the Nicaraguan contras was unconstitutional because it improperly impinged
on the president's power. The argument would become the cornerstone of the Bush
administration's post-9/11 policies.
A second critical article of faith for Addington has to do with the presidential chain of command.
"He believes there should be the shortest possible distance from the president to his cabinet
secretaries, and he does not like staffers or coordinating bodies in that chain of command," says
Cunningham, who worked closely with Addington and also was a Clinton administration lawyer.
Guide stars. Addington is a strong adherent of the so-called unitary executive theory, which is
3 of 12

cited frequently and prominently in many of Bush's legislative signing statements. The theory
holds that the president is solely in charge of the executive branch and that Congress, therefore,
can't tell him how to carry out his executive functions, whom to pick for what jobs, or through
whom he must report to Congress. Executive power, separation of power, a tight chain of
command, and protecting the unitary executive--those became the guide stars of Addington's
legal universe.
Addington spent two years in the Reagan White House in a variety of positions. When George
H.W. Bush was elected president, Addington moved to the Pentagon to help with the
confirmation hearings for Bush's nominee for defense secretary, former Texas Sen. John Tower.
Cheney, meanwhile, had just been named the new Republican whip in the House and hired
Addington as his new counsel. Addington switched jobs, but within weeks, the Senate rejected
the Tower nomination, and Bush tapped Cheney to be his new nominee for defense secretary.
Addington dug in, helped Cheney prepare for his confirmation hearings, and subsequently
became his special assistant. Addington, says one of Cheney's closest friends and colleagues,
David Gribbin, "became the most powerful staffer in the Pentagon" because he processed
virtually all the position papers flowing to and from the secretary and deputy secretary. Still,
Gribbin says he never viewed Addington as a gatekeeper, but many others did. "If David and I
ever tangled," says one former senior Pentagon official, "it was because I may have thought a
time or two that he was overzealous in his defense of the prerogatives of the secretary."
Those prerogatives, however, were sacrosanct to Addington. If a staffer submitted a draft memo
for President Bush that copied Cheney and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Addington would cross out
the latter. "He would say, the president talks to the secretary, and the secretary can do what he
wants," says the former Pentagon official. Oddly, Addington "abhorred" the use of Latin phrases
in memos, this official says, and would slash them out with his infamous red pen.
It wasn't long before Addington became the military's top lawyer. As the Pentagon general
counsel, Addington soon alienated the armed forces' judge advocate generals by authoring a
memo ordering the proudly independent corps of career military attorneys to report to the
general counsel of each service. "He wanted the military services to be not so independent," says
a retired Navy JAG, Rear Adm. Don Guter. "It came under the rubric of civilian control of the
military. It's centralization. It's control."
The JAG officers fought back and, with Congress's support, remained independent. But
Addington, typically, found another way to prevail. He wrote a memo decreeing that only the
general counsel of each service--not the JAGs--could issue final legal opinions. After George W.
Bush was elected president in 2000 (Addington sat out the Clinton years, in private practice),
4 of 12

Guter warned his colleagues: "I said, 'Stand by, these same people are coming back. And you
remember what they tried to do last time.'" After the 9/11 attacks, the JAG officers were
marginalized from the decision making on military tribunals and detainee treatment policies.
They became among President Bush's most vocal critics within the military.
By then, the odds were tilted overwhelmingly in Addington's favor. In January 2001, he became
Cheney's legal counsel and, according to former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the vice
president's "eyes, ears, and voice." Cheney implicitly trusts Addington on judgment calls because
they are, in the words of adviser Matalin, "the same kind of person--Addington was always the
first among equals when the vice president sought advice. And he has always been the final voice
and analysis on what we were discussing." Cheney and his aide are so close, says Nancy Dorn, an
Addington colleague from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush years, that they
"hardly even have to communicate with words."
Addington, his colleagues say, is modest, courtly, and family oriented. He commutes to the
White House by Metro when he could easily command a government car, usually eats at the staff
table at the White House mess, and spends weekends cheering at his daughters' soccer games.
"There are a lot of transactional people in Washington," says Matalin. "He's not one of them.
He's a good soul."
According to critics, the reason Addington is such an effective bureaucratic infighter is that he's
an intellectual bully. "David can be less than civilized," one official says. "He can be extremely
unpleasant." Others say it's because Addington is a superb lawyer and a skilled debater who
arms himself with a mind-numbing command of the facts and the law. Still others attribute
Addington's power to the outsize influence of Cheney. "Addington does a very good job," says a
former justice official who has observed him, "of harnessing the power of the vice president."
But it's a subtle kind of harnessing. Addington, according to current and former colleagues,
rarely if ever invokes Cheney's name. An administration official says that it's sometimes unclear
whether Addington is even consulting the vice president. But Cheney is always the elephant in
the room. "People perceive that this is the real power center," says attorney Scott Horton, who
has written two major studies on interrogation of terrorism suspects for the New York City Bar
Association, "and if you cross them, they will destroy you."
"Grab bag." If he can dish out the lumps inside the bureaucracy, Addington has also taken a
share of his own--in court. Many of the post-9/11 policies--of which Addington was the central
architect--have been questioned by federal judges and repudiated by even some of the
administration's advocates, including indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without access
5 of 12

to legal recourse, creation of military commissions, and aggressive interrogation tactics. "They've
inflicted wounds unnecessarily," says a former Justice Department lawyer. "They treated the
post-9/11 situation as a grab bag and gave the administration a bad name."
Win or lose, those who know him say Addington simply outworks his adversaries. Even when
lightning caused a fire that nearly destroyed his home, Addington missed just a day of work. His
office piled high with paperwork, eschewing a secretary, Addington is impossible to reach by
phone, but he E-mails colleagues at all hours of the day and night about urgent government
business and, sometimes, his own arcane intellectual pursuits, like British high court decisions
and Australian Supreme Court rulings. "It's clear," says a former White House official, "that he
has a wellspring of information to back up that wellspring of opinion." Addington's capacity to
absorb complex information is legendary. "My joke about David Addington is this is a guy who
can throw the U.S. budget in the air," says Gribbin, "and before it hits the ground, mark it with
up with his red pen."
A voracious consumer of information, Addington keeps tabs on judicial selections, U.S. attorney
nominations, and political polls. He is, says his former colleague Nancy Dorn, "granular" and
"microscopic," adding: "There was no issue too small, his eyes would catch it. It used to drive me
crazy. But that's what you need."
Addington's position in Cheney's office--at "the sausage end of the sausage-making machine," as
one former Justice official describes it--allows him to wield enormous influence because he is
typically the second-to-last lawyer to vet documents be-fore they land on the president's desk.
"David was exceptionally good," says Cunningham, the former deputy legal adviser to the
National Security Council, "at keeping his powder dry until the last minute." Addington's bottom
line, those who know him say, is ensuring that even if the administration loses on a policy issue,
the principle of executive power is protected. "He was very disciplined about knowing and
articulating the difference," says Cunningham, "between constitutional legal issues and policy
issues."
That became evident when Addington began his first big legal battle, in early 2001, after Cheney
refused to release documents relating to a controversial energy task force that he headed. Two
private watchdog groups and Congress sued to find out whether energy industry lobbyists
improperly sat on the task force and influenced administration policy. In a series of letters to
David Walker, the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, the
investigative arm of Congress, Addington argued that neither Congress nor the courts could
"intrude into the heart of executive deliberations," because it would inhibit the "candor"
necessary to "effective government." Addington argued strenuously that no matter what the
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political or policy outcomes, protecting the information sought by the task force was the right
thing to do. "They gave up short-term political expediency," Berenson says, "for the larger
constitutional principle." More than three years later, Addington's judgment was vindicated by
the Supreme Court, which refused to order the Bush administration to release the documents.
Tough guys. The 9/11 attacks became the crucible for the administration's commitment to
restoring presidential power and prerogative. In the national security arena, the expansive view
is that the president, as commander in chief, has the inherent authority to exercise vast powers
to secure the nation from external threats.
But even some pro-presidential lawyers in the administration argued in favor of exercising
caution with that approach. "My advice was that we need to take the least aggressive position
consistent with what we need to do," says a former Justice Department official. "It lets you build
on it, and it doesn't make you look so extreme." That was the crux of the post-9/11 debate.
In the months after the attacks, the White House made three crucial decisions: to keep Congress
out of the loop on major policy decisions like the creation of military commissions, to interpret
laws as narrowly as possible, and to confine decision making to a small, trusted circle. "They've
been so reluctant to seek out different views," says one former official. "It's not just Addington.
It's how this administration works. It's a very narrow, tight group."
That core group consisted of Bush's counsel and now attorney general, Alberto Gonzales; his
deputies, Timothy Flanigan and David Leitch; the Pentagon's influential general counsel,
William Haynes; and a young attorney named John Yoo, who worked in the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Whether or not he became the de facto leader of the group, as some administration officials say,
Addington's involvement made for a formidable team. "You put Addington, Yoo, and Gonzales in
a room, and there was a race to see who was tougher than the rest and how expansive they could
be with respect to presidential power," says a former Justice Department official. "If you
suggested anything less, you were considered a wimp." Others say Addington and Flanigan
influenced Gonzales, who lacked their national security background.
Addington had close ties to Yoo, Haynes, and Flanigan. Yoo was Addington's protege and
Hayne's squash buddy. Haynes, whose friendship with Addington dates back nearly two
decades, was backed by Rumsfeld and his neoconservative deputies Stephen Cambone and Paul
Wolfowitz. Addington and Flanigan had also become close, having experienced 9/11 from an
extraordinary vantage point--Flanigan from the White House Situation Room, Addington by
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Cheney's side at the President's Emergency Operations Center in a bunker underneath the
complex. In the weeks and months after the attacks, says a former White House official, the two
men would often take secret trips to undisclosed locations together, including the Guantanamo
naval base in Cuba, where the Pentagon began holding hundreds of detainees. One time, they
even showed up together on a nuclear submarine.
Addington, clearly, was a force behind the scenes in the legal skirmishing within the
administration. "There'd be lurches in policy; we wouldn't know what was going on," says
Admiral Guter. "Haynes would have meetings at the White House with Gonzales and Addington,
and he'd come back and give the next iteration of what we were doing, and we'd scratch our
heads and say, 'Where did that come from?'"
One of Addington's most important allies in asserting presidential power was the OLC's Yoo.
Traditionally, OLC staffers tend to be longtime career lawyers who ensure that the tenor of the
legal opinions rendered is devoid of political overtones. After 9/11, however, OLC lawyers
drafted a series of opinions that many career Justice Department attorneys viewed as having
traduced the office's heritage of nuanced, almost scholarly, legal analysis. Addington, according
to several Justice Department officials, helped Yoo shape some of the most controversial OLC
memos.
The administration's first goal was winning passage of a congressional resolution authorizing the
use of military force. The Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted Congress to define the
conflict narrowly and authorize the use of force against al Qaeda and its confederates, as well as
the Taliban. "It has a good impact on morale to have a conflict that's narrowly defined and easily
winnable," says attorney Horton. But Addington and Cheney, according to Horton, "really
wanted it [defined more broadly], because it provided the trigger for this radical redefinition of
presidential power."
In an Addington-influenced OLC opinion issued shortly after 9/11, Yoo wrote that Congress can't
"place any limits on the president's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of
military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response."
A second critically important issue was what to do with those captured on the field of battle. The
State Department's ambassador at large for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, headed an
interagency group within the administration and began exploring ideas. National Security
Council legal adviser John Bellinger was a key member of the group, which discussed options
ranging from military tribunals to prosecutions in federal court. The discussions were short-
circuited, several former administration officials say, when Flanigan, one of Gonzales's two top
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