There is, of course, good reason for anyone concerned with the transparent workings of a functioning democracy to wonder about the fate of a Cheney paper trail, because, as the Post explained, “the vice president has long resisted revealing any aspect of the inner workings of his office. He has, for example, shielded information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, his travel costs and details, and Secret Service logs of visitors to his office and residence. Cheney also has argued that he is not part of the executive branch.”

In court, Claire M. O’Donnell, Cheney’s deputy chief of staff, offered a narrow, and typically Cheney-esque definition of vice presidential records, which failed to correspond with the one enshrined in the law, and which attempted to argue that the statute only applied to records relating to her boss’s “constitutional, statutory or other official or ceremonial duties,” which fall within “the category of functions of the Vice President specially assigned to the Vice President by the President in the discharge of executive duties and responsibilities” or “the category of the functions of the Vice President as President of the Senate.” In other words, that all Cheney’s significant functions (as an unaccountable member of the executive branch, presumably) were — and were to remain — out of sight.

As the Post noted, “that definition excludes many records, including those relating to Cheney’s work on the National Security Council and those where he acted without instructions from the president, such as his efforts to win reauthorization of a top-secret warrantless wiretapping program.” Fortunately, Judge Kollar-Kotelly “ordered all records preserved until the court can sort out the legal arguments on both sides before the presidential transition in January,” and stated, “Those unprotected documents could be transferred to other entities, destroyed, or not preserved, and if any of these events occur, the damage is inherently irreparable; once documentary material is gone, it cannot be retrieved.”

This is all well and good, but I can’t help wondering how much documentary material has already gone. I must stop looking at that snow globe …

For more information, here’s CREW’s website (with more on the case):
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/34245
Here’s the Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/20/AR2008092001627.html
And here’s the ruling:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/crew092008.pdf