WASHINGTON - September 8 - Today CREW, along with two eminent historians and three organizations of historians and archivists filed a complaint against Vice President Cheney, the Office of the Vice President, the archivist and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), challenging their exclusion of a vast majority of Vice President Cheney's papers from the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the obligation to preserve for the American public. In an executive order issued in 2001, President Bush declared that the PRA applied only to the "executive records" of the vice president. Since that time, the vice president has taken the view that he is not part of the executive and is attached, if at all, to the congressional branch. Moreover, the archivist takes the view that the congressional records of a vice president are his personal, not presidential, records that he is free to dispose of at will. As a result of these unlawful policies, without judicial intervention on January 20, 2009, the vast majority of Vice President Cheney's records will not be transferred to NARA for eventual release to the public, but instead will remain under the vice president's custody and control. CREW is also seeking an order mandating preservation of all of the vice president's records pending the lawsuit.

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