At Cheney's side, controversy

WASHINGTON -- Since he took office, Vice President Cheney has led the Bush administration's effort to increase the power of the presidency. "I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job," he said after a year in office, calling it "wrong" for past presidents to yield to congressional demands. "We are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years."

Cheney has tried to increase executive power with a series of bold actions -- some so audacious that even sympathetic conservatives on the Supreme Court have rejected them as overreaching. His point man in this is his top lawyer, longtime aide David Addington.

Where there has been controversy over the past four years, there has often been Addington. He was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects. He was a prime advocate of arguments supporting the detaining of terrorism suspects without access to courts.

Addington also 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 Haynes II for a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Haynes's nomination has been a source of huge friction on Capitol Hill.

Colleagues say Addington, 47, stands out for his devotion to secrecy in an administration noted for its confidentiality. He declined to be interviewed or photographed for this article, or to respond to a list of specific points made in the article.

Addington was a lawyer and GOP staff member on congressional committees on intelligence and the Iran-contra matter before Cheney, then defense secretary, chose him to serve as general counsel at the Pentagon.

Even in a White House known for its dedication to conservative philosophy, Addington is particularly known as an ideologue, an adherent of an obscure philosophy called the unitary executive theory that favors an extraordinarily powerful president.

The unitary executive notion can be found in the torture memo. "In light of the president's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority in these areas," the memo said. Prohibitions on torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander in chief authority. . . . Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield." The same would go for "federal officials acting pursuant to the president's constitutional authority."

"The Framers understood the [commander in chief] clause as investing the president with the fullest range of power," the memo said, including "the conduct of warfare and the defense of the nation unless expressly assigned in the Constitution to Congress."

Colleagues say Addington frequently clashes with others, particularly the National Security Council's top lawyer, John Bellinger. Officials say disputes between Addington and Jack Goldsmith, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, led Goldsmith to resign after eight months; Addington had sought to persuade Goldsmith's office to take a more permissive line on torture.

Addington's influence, like Cheney's overall, extends throughout the government in his bid to expand executive power. He goes through every page of the federal budget in search of riders that could restrict executive authority. He routinely works to defeat proposals from the State Department, where the pervasive internationalist philosophy is at odds with Cheney's neoconservatism.

Occasionally, others in the administration have sought to keep Addington out of the loop to avoid his inevitable objections. When the White House agreed, under pressure from Congress, to appoint a commission to investigate the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Cheney's office did not know about it until a reporter called to inquire.

There has been something of a backlash against Addington's philosophy within the administration, where some think his aggressive legal arguments have made the courts more suspicious of executive authority. That was a common complaint when the Supreme Court in June ruled that US citizens held as "enemy combatants" are entitled to contest the government's case in court.

"Addington adds to the problems the president has with the courts," said Bruce Fein, an official in the Reagan Justice Department who worked with Addington during the Iran-contra probe. Fein said Addington's assertions "have resulted in actually weakening the presidency because of intransigence."