This weekend, the New York Times broke the story that the Bush administration had a secret counter-terrorism program started after the 9/11 attacks and that Vice President Cheney directed the CIA to keep it from Congress. The World’s Jason Margolis reports on the legal ramifications. Listen

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JEB SHARP: In the months before the US invaded Afghanistan, the Bush Administration reportedly started a top-secret counter-terrorism program. As the New York Times reported this weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA to hide it from Congress. And it apparently did so for eight years until current CIA director Leon Panetta found out about it and closed it down. Right now, Congressional members are sounding off about the secret program, though no one is providing much in the way of specifics. The World’s Jason Margolis reports.

JASON MARGOLIS: The details are still murky and slowly unfolding, but a new piece of information was added today. The Wall Street Journal reported that the secret CIA program was to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives. The Journal reports that the precise nature of the CIA’s highly classified effort remains unclear. It also says the program never became fully operational. But from the point of view of Congressional Democrats, that doesn’t matter.

DARRELL WEST: It is the act of having misled members of Congress.

JASON MARGOLIS: That’s Darrell West, the director of governance studies at the Brookings Intuition.

DARRELL WEST: I mean, the issue is whether Cheney encouraged people at the CIA to mislead Congress. If that actually did take place, those are very serious charges, and the vice president could be subject to legal jeopardy.

JASON MARGOLIS: If Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold intelligence to Congress, that is a clear violation of the law, says Mark Ellis with the International Bar Association.

MARK ELLIS: You look at the National Security Act; it expressly states that it’s the responsibility, in this case for the CIA, to provide this national intelligence. If you were in any way trying to avoid providing this information or misleading Congress, what the CIA would be doing would be directly violating its responsibility.

JASON MARGOLIS: The decision whether to investigate lies in the hands of US attorney general Eric Holder.  Holder is reportedly already considering opening an investigation into possible CIA torture during interrogations.

ERIC HOLDER: He really does hold now the power to independently decide whether a special prosecutor will be appointed. And if that’s the case then this will move to a very different environment, because then you are talking about legal parameters brought in and holding individuals accountable.

JASON MARGOLIS: President Obama has said the nation should be looking forward, not backward.  Darrell West at Brookings says a potential investigation puts President Obama in a tough situation.

DARRELL WEST: Because he has promised reconciliation and bringing people together, and if there is an investigation into Vice President Cheney, it inherently is going to be very divisive and seen in partisan terms.

JASON MARGOLIS: That already seems to be happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The executive branch of government cannot create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: I believe that Vice President Cheney served his country with as much fidelity as he could possibly give to it.

JASON MARGOLIS: On the Sunday morning political shows, senators like Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Jeff Sessions took their respective party lines. If the attorney general chooses not to investigate, Congressional Democrats are talking about taking matters into their own hands, establishing a so-called Truth Commission.  Republicans and the Obama Administration have not supported the idea. For the World, I’m Jason Margolis.

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