Cheney's Secret Powers

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By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, February 17, 2006; 12:24 PM

Toward the end of an interview that was primarily about his accidental shooting of a hunting buddy, Vice President Cheney on Wednesday made a blunt but possibly unjustified assertion about his power to declassify government secrets. Then he clammed up.

From the transcript of Cheney's interview with Fox News's Brit Hume:

Hume: "Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?"

Cheney: "There is an executive order to that effect."

Hume: "There is."

Cheney: "Yes."

Hume: "Have you done it?"

Cheney: "Um, well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --"

Hume: " You ever done it unilaterally?"

Cheney blinked and paused. (Here's the video of that part of the interview.)

Cheney: "Um, I don't want to get into that."

But if Cheney is so confident in his authority, why the hesitation to acknowledge that he has used it?

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