David Addington

David Spears Addington (born January 22, 1957) is an American lawyer who was legal counsel (2001–2005) and chief of staff (2005–2009) to Vice President Dick Cheney.

After David's birth in 1957 in Washington, D.C., his father was posted to Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, Camp St. Barbara in South Korea, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Oakdale, Pennsylvania, and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where Addington lived during his father's 1967–1969 assignment as chief of the United States Military Training Mission.

In this role, the elder Addington, who was promoted to brigadier general in 1965, was responsible for U.S. training and security assistance programs for the Armed Forces of Saudi Arabia.

During the family's two-year stay in Saudi Arabia, David Addington (then 10 and 11 years old) was a student at American School Dhahran on the grounds of the U.S. Consulate.

Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on US foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.

In his House Judiciary Committee testimony, Addington said that he applied three filters in formulating advice on the War on Terror: (i) comply with the Constitution, (ii) within the law, maximize the President's options, and (iii) ensure legal protection of military and intelligence personnel engaged in counterterrorism activities.

Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution, the president has substantial and expansive powers as commander-in-chief during wartime, if need be.

He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements that President George W. Bush issued when signing bills passed by Congress, expanding the practice relative to other Presidents.

Charlie Savage, the former national legal affairs writer for The Boston Globe who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on signing statements, quotes former associate White House counsel Brad Berenson saying that Addington "would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal" as he crafted the statements.

Addington graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico in May 1974.

He was admitted to United States Naval Academy and attended beginning in fall 1974, but dropped out during his freshman year.

Addington took classes at the University of Albuquerque before enrolling at Georgetown University in 1975.

He is a May 1978 graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (B.S.F.S., summa cum laude) and holds a Juris Doctor from Duke University School of Law (May 1981).

He was admitted to the bar in both Virginia and the District of Columbia in 1981.

Addington was an assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1981 to 1984.

From 1984 to 1987 he was counsel for the House committees on intelligence and foreign affairs.

He served as a staff attorney on for congressional committees investigating the Iran–Contra affair as an assistant to Congressman Bill Broomfield (R-MI).

Books and news articles have said that he was one of the principal authors of a controversial minority report issued at the conclusion of the joint committee's investigation, which "defended President Reagan by claiming it was 'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'" but in his opening remarks as he testified under subpoena before the House Judiciary Committee, Addington said that he had left the committee's service before the minority report was written and had no role in it.

Addington was also a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's deputy assistant.

From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to Cheney, who was then the secretary of defense, before being appointed by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as the Department of Defense's general counsel in 1992.

In 1993 and 1994, Addington was the Republican staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In 1994 and 1995, he headed a political action committee, the Alliance for American Leadership, set up to support Republican candidates for public office, with a principal focus on being a presidential exploratory committee for Cheney, as the former Defense Secretary contemplated running for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.

From 1995 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firms Baker Donelson and Holland & Knight, and the American Trucking Associations.

He also provided extensive assistance to Dick Cheney when the latter was chief executive officer of Halliburton and was in charge of vetting potential presidential running mates for the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign, before he was officially his party's nominee for the White House and surprised many political observers by choosing Cheney himself to be his running mate.

As counsel to the vice president, Addington's duties involved protecting the legal interests of the Office of the Vice President.

Although limited duties have been given under the Constitution, each vice president has a role in association with the president.

As chief of staff, Addington supervised the vice president's staff.

In both roles, Addington also provided advice to the White House staff, as he had the additional role of Assistant to the President, as his predecessor Scooter Libby had likewise held.

As vice presidential counsel, Addington is known for his focus on the constitutional independence of the vice president.

He tried to protect the inner workings of the Office of the Vice President from investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and private organizations.

After he began working for Cheney, Addington was influential in numerous policy areas.

He provided advice and drafted memoranda on many of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration.

Press reports have alleged that Addington helped to shape an August 2002 opinion from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that said torture might be justified in some cases, although John Yoo, author of many of the "Torture Memos", dismissed the notion of Addington's authorship of Department of Justice memos as "so erroneous as to be laughable."

A declassified CIA congressional briefing memo of February 4, 2003 states "The (CIA) General Counsel described the process by which the (enhanced interrogation) techniques were approved by a bevy of lawyers from the NSC, the Vice President’s office and the Justice Department," which makes it likely that Addington was aware of the coercive methods if not one or more of the "torture memos" as well, although it is not clear exactly what the CIA memo meant by the word 'approved' as none of the lawyers mentioned was in the chain of command that approves CIA operations and the White House-level lawyers relied on Justice Department legal opinions rather than developing and issuing legal opinions of their own.

He was appointed to replace I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. as Cheney's chief of staff upon Libby's resignation when Libby was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on October 28, 2005.

Addington was described by U.S. News & World Report as "the most powerful man you've never heard of" in May 2006.

Addington was born in Washington, D.C., the first son of Eleanore "Billie" (Flaherty) and the late Jerry Spears Addington, a retired brigadier general and West Point graduate.

The Addington family moved often and there were periods during which Jerry was posted overseas while his family remained stateside.

He was the vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation from 2010 to 2016.

During 21 years of U.S. government service, Addington worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Reagan White House, the Department of Defense, four congressional committees, and in the Office of the Vice President.