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The late Vice President Dick Cheney’s concluding involvement in politics turned out to be his most commendable. Cheney, a Republican, cautioned that then-nominee Donald Trump “can never again be entrusted with authority,” and he prompted voters in 2024 to choose Trump’s Democratic rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, for president — an unusual occurrence of a significant political personality prioritizing values over political allegiance.
However, while Cheney, who passed away on Monday, spurned Trump because of the latter’s employment of “untruths and aggression to remain in power following the electorate’s rejection” in 2020, Trump’s second term in office is significantly indebted to Cheney himself.
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Cheney stood as one of the key originators of the extensive authorities that Trump presently exercises as president. He was among the most compelling and potent supporters of the “unitary executive” concept, an all-encompassing viewpoint of presidential jurisdiction that all six Republican members of the Supreme Court now regard as irrefutable truth. Cheney envisioned a presidency essentially unchecked by the legislative branch and permitted to operate swiftly and even forcefully. Presently, we are experiencing precisely the sort of presidency that Cheney pursued throughout his lengthy career.
Cheney sought to subordinate Congress to the presidency, especially on matters of national security
Shortly after Ronald Reagan’s initial election as president in 1980, James Baker, his future chief of staff, requested guidance from Cheney, who had previously served in the same role under President Gerald Ford. Baker’s records from that conversation commenced with a concept that fueled a considerable portion of Cheney’s professional life: “Reinstate authority & power to the Exec Branch — Need robust leadership. Eliminate the War Powers Act — restore self-governing rights.”
The mention of the War Powers Resolution — a statute from 1973 mandating presidential consultation with Congress before deploying military forces, and stipulating that such deployments must cease after 60 days without Congressional approval — illustrated Cheney’s perspective on the equilibrium of power between Congress and the president.
As detailed by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman in their Pulitzer Prize-winning series on Cheney from 2007, Cheney viewed Congress as an unnecessary deterrent in the dynamic arena of international geopolitics. Merely because Congress had allocated funds to the military, Cheney contended in 1983, it signifies “the president possesses the jurisdiction to determine how to utilize those resources.”
Ironically, Cheney expressed these opinions while serving in the House of Representatives, implying that his dedication to a commanding executive overshadowed any commitment to the entity he was then representing. Congress, Cheney asserted, is “frequently impacted by the prevailing sentiments of the moment” and is deficient in the resources “that would enable Congress to operate as an equal partner with the president” in rendering prompt decisions concerning foreign affairs and national defense.
If this portrayal of a rapid and resolute president, unrestrained by legal limitations imposed by Congress, appears familiar, it should. It constitutes the underlying rationale behind Trump v. United States (2024), the unfortunate Supreme Court ruling asserting Trump’s entitlement to employ presidential prerogatives to perpetrate offenses.
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That judgment, which was endorsed by all six Republican justices, references no constitutional article that positions the president above legal accountability. Instead, it grounds presidential safeguarding from penal law in a notion reminiscent of Cheney, suggesting that “the President would be dissuaded from undertaking the ‘daring and unwavering actions’ demanded of an independent Executive” if burdened by the apprehension of prosecution for personal transgressions.
Cheney championed the “unitary executive”
The Trump impunity ruling also signified the triumph of another legal doctrine promoted by Cheney: the “unitary executive.” As legal scholar Marty Lederman articulated Cheney’s interpretation of this doctrine in 2007, the unitary executive embodies the conviction that “the president and the president’s immediate advisers should possess the conclusive determination — indeed the sole determination — regarding all affairs within the executive domain.”
Consequently, during his vice presidency, Cheney endeavored to “extinguish or marginalize any contrary viewpoints, whether within the military…or the intelligence communities, when these entities failed to furnish him with the narratives concerning Iraq and other regions that he sought to hear; or within the Department of Justice, when the legal interpretations presented deviated from the legal assessments of the vice president.”
As Lederman suggests, perhaps the most notable illustration of Cheney’s initiatives to subordinate national security officers to President George W. Bush’s strategies involved his endeavors to undermine intelligence officials and institutions that questioned Bush’s justifications for the Iraq War.
Typically, unrefined intelligence data undergoes meticulous assessment and contextualization by intelligence experts prior to its review by the highest-ranking officials in the government. However, in the period leading up to the Iraq War, Cheney directed the CIA to selectively channel unverified intelligence to his office. Subsequently, he extracted details that seemed to bolster the case for military action, such as documents insinuating that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium, which the CIA considered most likely fabricated, and he utilized these documents to advocate for war before the American populace.
In essence, Cheney regarded executive branch personnel as subordinates to the president and his objectives — consequently, the rationale for federal agencies was to facilitate those objectives. Professionalism, veracity, or the intelligence agencies’ autonomous obligation to generate factual information were all rendered secondary to the president’s aims.
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This conception of executive branch figures as entirely subservient to the president currently influences the Supreme Court’s approach to the allocation of powers. It is the impetus behind the Court’s rulings permitting Trump to terminate virtually any employee within any federal agency, ranging from agency directors to routine civil servants — even in situations where Congress had extended job protection to these individuals. It also features prominently in the infamous Trump immunity decision, which even authorizes Trump to instruct the Justice Department to target his perceived adversaries “for an illegitimate end.”
Cheney’s assertion regarding Trump’s unsuitability to be entrusted with the authorities he currently possesses was accurate. Nonetheless, Cheney committed as much effort as anyone to furnishing Trump with numerous of these authorities. Although the departed former vice president may have cast his ultimate, patriotic ballot for Kamala Harris, he bears as much culpability for Trump’s absolute presidency as any other American.
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Source: vox.com
