A lawsuit to prevent Dick from withholding, destroying docs on his exit from office

Historians and scholars are among those joining a lawsuit aimed at preventing the Bush administration from destroying or withholding documents related to the role of the "most influential vice president in U.S. history," Dick Cheney, in forming public policy, the Washington Post reports in its Monday edition.


Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is expected to file the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday to assert the requirement to preserve the documents in question under the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978, contrary to loopholes engineered and statements made during Cheney's time in office.


Expected to be named as defendants are Vice President Cheney, the executive offices of Cheney and President Bush, the National Archives and chief archivist Allen Weinstein."I'm concerned that they may not be preserved," said Stanley Kutler, constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School. "Whether they've been zapped already, we don't know.""I think you'd have to be very worried about it," added former vice president Walter Mondale. "Under Bush and Cheney, they've used every opportunity to assert executive privilege."
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