Political commentators and cable news talking heads have spent much time lately arguing the merits of a CIA “plan” to assassinate Al Queda leaders that may or may not have been developed during the time since September 11, 2001.

Irrespective of ideology or party affiliation, it is likely safe to say that the vast    majority of Americans would have approved of such plans, and might even have asked how much money the CIA needed to implement it.  Such was and remains the upset over Al Queda’s attacks against the United States.

However, the point is not the merits of assassination plots.  Rather, the issue is the law.

It is incumbent on the executive branch of the United States government to keep Congress “fully and currently informed” of its actions as contemplated, planned, or effectuated by the Central Intelligence Agency.  Congress holds oversight responsibility for such matters, especially as the holders of the purse strings to finance such activities.

Whether a plan, a program or an effort, the CIA is required by law to keep Congress informed, and the President is officially responsible for ensuring that disclosure.  While the President may delegate the authority to oversee adherence to disclosure requirements to another, it should be by an affirmative act of commission, and not by usurpation or inattention to detail.

It is not possible at present to know whether former President George W. Bush specifically and affirmatively designated former Vice President Cheney to liase with the CIA on Congressional briefings, or authorize him to instruct CIA on those briefings.  Even in the absence of a formal designation, though, it is questionable whether the vice president had the authority to order the CIA’s withholding of information about any assassination plans, programs or efforts in its briefings to Congress.

It has been suggested, also, that these recent revelations about CIA assassination plans and the withholding of information from Congressional briefings about them are merely to cover Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s political exposure after her suggestion the CIA had lied to her.  While this may or may not be true, it also is tangential to the point.

Again, that point is the CIA’s obligation to keep Congress “fully and currently informed,” and whether they failed to meet that obligation in withholding assassination plans.

That having been said, the politics of the issue are obvious.  If the CIA failed to fully and currently inform Congress about assassination plans, it was during the Bush administration, and so the Republicans can be expected to rally around the failure and defend it.  Deflecting and misdirecting is the tactic being used presently.

Further, if the CIA’s failure to disclose and inform was at the instruction of then Vice President Cheney, Republicans can be expected to deflect and misdirect attention on that, too.

Democrats have pushed this issue and attempted to frame the debate as another instance of Bush and Cheney policies outside the law.  The line is rather fine when it comes to distinguishing the emotion of wanting to kill all members of Al Queda, on the one hand, and defending the law, on the other, and the Dems are likely to have problems with this.  It might not have been a battle worth fighting from a political standpoint.

However, when you cut through the politics of the moment, the core issue is the law.  Keeping Congress fully and currently informed is the legal requirement, and it does seem the CIA violated that mandate.  Don’t lose sight of that as the political debate rages.