WASHINGTON -- As lawmakers advised the Bush administration to clean house after last week's criminal charges against a top official in the CIA leak case, Vice President Dick Cheney elevated yesterday two aides who emerged as bit players in that saga to replace his indicted former chief of staff.
Cheney named his chief counsel, David S. Addington, yesterday as his new chief of staff. Addington replaces I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned Friday after being charged with perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation into how the identity of a covert CIA officer was leaked to reporters.
Like Libby, Addington is close to Cheney, has worked with him for two decades and does not shy from controversy or confrontation - co-authoring a memo that critics charged allowed torture to be used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects and leading the charge to keep secret the vice president's meetings with lobbyists as he drafted a national energy plan.
Libby's role as Cheney's national security adviser will be taken over by John Hannah, the vice president's deputy national security adviser.
Neither Addington nor Hannah was mentioned by name in the indictment, and neither was accused of wrongdoing. Both, according to the document, had discussions with Libby related to the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, and her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, who emerged in 2003 as a White House critic that administration officials were eager to rebut.
Over the weekend, Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the former majority leader, joined Democrats in urging the White House to bring in new blood to fill leadership positions. That point was echoed yesterday by Democrats following the announcement that Hannah and Addington were being promoted.
"It is time for the president and vice president to bring in a new team of advisers who are above ethical reproach, like [President Ronald] Reagan did in his second term," said New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who as chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee hopes his party can make gains by painting the Bush White House as tainted by scandal.
