David Addington Is the Most Powerful Man You’Ve Never Heard Of

Nation & World 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 after 9/11, with Bush’s authorization of soil, including American citizens. military tribunals for terrorism suspects, The “invisible hand.” Much of the criti- ne week after the Septem- secret detentions and aggressive inter- cism that has been directed at these meas- ber 11 terrorist attacks, Pres- rogations of “unlawful enemy combat- ures has focused on Vice President Dick ident George W. Bush briefly ants,” and warrantless electronic sur- Cheney. In fact, however, it is a largely turned his gaze away from the veillance of terrorism suspects on U.S. anonymous government lawyer, who now unfolding crisis to an impor- O tant but far less pressing mo- ment 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 in- vited the various educational groups list- ed 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 ap- pointments clause of the Constitution, it was his job, and his alone, to make those kinds of decisions. This was what is known, in the clois- tered 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 meas- ure 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 hall- marks 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 In the White House Emergency Operations Center, 9/11. Addington is standing at rear. 32 U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT serves as Cheney’s chief of staff, who has erful person no one has never heard of.” less crime boss in the thriller The Usual served as the ramrod driving the Bush ad- Name one significant action taken by Suspects. “He seems to have his hand in ministration’s most secretive and contro- the Bush White House after 9/11, and everything,” says a former Justice De- versial counterterrorism measures chances are better than even that partment official, “and he has these in- through the bureaucracy. David Adding- Addington had a role in it. So ubiquitous credible powers, energy, reserves in an ton was a key advocate of the Brown v. is he that one Justice Department lawyer obsessive, zealot’s kind of way.” Adding- Board and more than 750 other signing calls Addington “Adam Smith’s invisible ton declined repeated requests to be in- statements the administration has issued hand” in national security matters. The terviewed for this story. since taking office—a record that far out- White House assertion—later proved Addington’s admirers say he is being strips that of any other president. false—that Saddam Hussein tried to buy demonized unfairly. “This is a new war, The signing statements are just one nuclear precursors from Niger to ad- an unconventional war,” says an infor- tool that Addington and a small cadre of vance a banned weapons program? mal Cheney adviser, Mary Matalin. ultraconservative lawyers at the heart of Addington helped vet that. The effort to “When you are making new policy to the Bush administration are employing discredit a former ambassador who pub- meet new challenges, you are going to get to prosecute the war on terrorism. Little licly dismissed the Niger claim as base- vicious opposition.” known outside the West Wing and the less, by disclosing the name of his wife, Few would have predicted that Adding- inner sanctums of the cia, the Pentagon, a covert cia officer? Addington was right ton, 49, would become such a lightning and the State Department, Addington is in the middle of that, too, though he has rod. Tall, bearded, and imposing, Adding- a genial colleague who also possesses an not been accused of wrongdoing. ton has the look, says former White House explosive temper that he does not hesi- In national security circles, Addington associate counsel Bradford Berenson, of tate to direct at those who oppose him. is viewed as such a force of nature that “a rumpled bureaucrat crossed with a cia Addington, says an admiring former one former government lawyer nick- spook.” The son of a career military offi- White House official, is “the most pow- named him “Keyser Söze,” after the ruth- cial, Addington was born and raised in the DAVID BOHRER—THE WHITE HOUSE 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 Conven- tion, May to September 1787. “The next battlefield.” Thus began a life- long 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 congression- al staffer with a chuckle, “is that Adding- ton 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 in- tensely security minded: “He’s absolute- ly convinced of the threat we face. And he believes that the executive branch is the only part of the government capable of se- curing 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, U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT 33 Nation & World then a Wyoming congressman and mem- port to Congress. Executive power, sep- mer senior Pentagon official, “it was be- ber of the intelligence panel. Addington aration of power, a tight chain of com- cause I may have thought a time or two and Cheney—who served as President mand, and protecting the unitary execu- that he was overzealous in his defense of Gerald Ford’s chief of staff—shared the tive—those became the guide stars of the prerogatives of the secretary.” same grim worldview: Watergate, Viet- Addington’s legal universe. Those prerogatives, however, were nam, and later, the Iran-contra scandal Addington spent two years in the Rea- sacrosanct to Addington. If a staffer sub- during President Reagan’s second term gan White House in a variety of posi- mitted a draft memo for President Bush had all dangerously eroded the powers of tions. When George H. W. Bush was that copied Cheney and the Joint Chiefs of the presidency. “Addington believes that elected president, Addington moved to Staff, Addington would cross out the lat- through sloppy lawyering as much as the Pentagon to help with the confirma- ter. “He would say, the president talks to through politics,” says former National tion hearings for Bush’s nominee for de- the secretary, and the secretary can do Security Council deputy legal adviser fense secretary, former Texas Sen. John what he wants,” says the former Pentagon Bryan Cunningham, “the executive branch Tower. Cheney, meanwhile, had just official. Oddly, Addington “abhorred” the use of Latin phrases in memos, this official says, and would slash Cheney’s top aide is so powerful he’s them out with his infa- mous red pen. been called Keyser Söze, the ruthless It wasn’t long before Addington became the military’s top lawyer. crime boss in The Usual Suspects. As the Pentagon general counsel, Adding- has acquiesced to en- ton soon alienated the croachment of its con- armed forces’ judge stitutional authority by advocate generals by au- Congress.” thoring a memo order- When Cheney being the proudly inde- came ranking Republi- pendent corps of career can on the House select military attorneys to re- committee investigating port to the general coun- the Iran-contra scandal, sel of each service. “He Addington helped write wanted the military ser- the strongly worded mi- vices to be not so inde- nority report that said pendent,” says a retired the law barring aid to Navy jag, Rear Adm. the Nicaraguan contras Don Guter. “It came was unconstitutional under the rubric of civil- because it improperly ian control of the mili- impinged on the presi- tary.

Load more