As the Washington Post’s Christopher Lee laid out this morning, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with a coterie of historians and archivists, have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the vice president himself. The lawsuit concerns whether Dick Cheney might use a 2001 executive order by President Bush to undermine the 1978 Presidential Records Act. The post-Watergate PRA compels the president and vice president to turn over all documents relevant to their time in office once they depart.

But the 2001 executive order says that Cheney must turn over all "executive records" to the National Archives. And, here we go, Cheney claims that the vice presidency is not part of the executive branch. Will the White House use this notorious claim to destroy or withhold the records of the most powerful vice president in American history? CREW et al seem to think so. Stay tuned to see if the VP just turns over his records– or this is a constitutional battle Cheney is jonesing to have.-MB

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