Cheney Says Won't Turn Over List of Energy Meetings
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Background: Waxman Asks Cheney to Come Clean.
Source: Truthout.
Cheney Says Won't Turn Over List of Energy Meetings
The Associated Press
Sunday, January 27, 2002; 10:51 AM
WASHINGTON ญญ Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday he will not give congressional investigators a list of business leaders with whom he met while formulating the administration's energy policy. He said such a list would harm his ability to receive advice in the future.
At question are meetings Cheney or members of his energy task force held with officials of the now-collapsed Enron Corp. while the energy policy was being formed last year.
Cheney said his office already has given investigators numerous financial and other records.
What he won't turn over, despite demands by investigators and Democratic congressmen, is "a listing of everybody I meet with, of everything that was discussed, any advice that was received, notes and minutes of those meetings," Cheney told "Fox News Sunday."
"Now, that would be unprecedented in the sense that that's not been done before. It's unprecedented in the sense that it would make it virtually impossible for me to have confidential conversations with anybody," he said.
"You just cannot accept that proposition without putting a chill over the ability of the president and vice president to receive unvarnished advice."
David Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is deciding whether to file a lawsuit to force the administration to turn over the information. Such a lawsuit would be the first against the White House.
Cheney said the GAO is a "creature of Congress" whose authority does not extend to the White House. "I'm a constitutional officer, and the authority of the GAO does not extend in that case to my office."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card agreed that the administration's ability to have confidential talks with advisers should be fiercely guarded.
"I believe very strongly in protecting the privilege of the president" on recommendations that may not come out in public domain, he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Cheney said the administration's stance is the same as it was last August, when investigators sought similar information. The GAO eventually backed off.
"What's re-energized it now is the question of Enron and some efforts by some of my Democratic friends on the Hill to try to create a political issue out of what's really a corporate issue," Cheney added on ABC's "This Week."
"What Enron's all about is a corporate collapse, maybe malfeasance in office, and that will be dealt with. ... But if the principle was valid last August, the collapse of Enron should not be permitted to undermine the principle," he said.
Background: Waxman Asks Cheney to Come Clean.
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