Free Republic

US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath Nov 16 6:44 PM US/Eastern Email this story Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony. Leading oil company executives long have denied taking part in a secretive energy task force run in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney, but White House records obtained by The Washington Post refuted that, according to the daily's editions on Wednesday. The ad hoc group was tasked with helping develop a...

... The real issue at stake in Cheney is the right of executive-branch officials to seek private advice as they see fit. The Court unfortunately chose not to take this on directly, though Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion makes it clear that the majority believes courts ought to be wary of intruding on the Executive Branch. "Special considerations applicable to the president and the vice president suggest that the courts should be sensitive to requests by the government" in such cases, he writes. Then there's the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act or FACA. In Cheney, a couple of activist groups...

Excerpts from Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on Vice President Dick Cheney's private energy task force meetings. From the main opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy: "It is well established that a president's communications and activities encompass a vastly wider range of sensitive material than would be true of any ordinary individual. ... As United States v. Nixon explained, these principles do not mean that the 'president is above the law.' Rather, they simply acknowledge that the public interest requires that a coequal branch of government 'afford presidential confidentiality the greatest protection consistent with the fair administration of justice,' and...

Just breaking on CNN.

The argument would seem to be simple: When a member of the White House meets with outsiders to plan legislation that will affect every American, every American deserves to know who helped to draw up the legislation. But Hillary Clinton didn't see it that way in 1993, and Dick Cheney doesn't see it now. Ms. Clinton led a task force that developed her husband's health-care plan, which Congress shot down in 1994. White House attorneys argued that the group was an "anonymous horde" that didn't break the law by operating in secret. A court disagreed. The "horde," by the way,...

WASHINGTON - A defiant Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) refused Thursday to remove himself from a case involving his good friend, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), dismissing suggestions of a conflict of interest. In an unusual 21-page memorandum, he rejected a request by the Sierra Club (news - web sites). The environmental group said it was improper for Scalia to take a hunting trip with Cheney while the court was considering whether the White House must release information about private meetings of Cheney's energy task force. Scalia said the remote Louisiana hunting camp...

Sierra Club May Seek Scalia Recusal in Cheney Case Sat Feb 7, 9:23 AM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Sierra Club (news - web sites) environmental group said on Friday it was considering formally asking U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) to recuse himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force. AP Photo Cheney and Scalia flew to Louisiana on Jan. 5 to go duck hunting together, and the trip has prompted accusations...

WASHINGTON (SH) - Politics is nothing if not about whose ox is getting gored, to use a trite expression from my grandmother's era. It is the one consistency in an utterly capricious science. Back in the early '90s when Hillary Rodham Clinton was putting together her nightmarish proposal to overhaul the nation's health-care industry, Democrats saw nothing wrong in the fact that the then-first lady was conducting nearly all her deliberations in secret with a handpicked panel that excluded Republicans and most of the real experts in the field. The result, of course, was so ludicrous that not only could...

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean (news - web sites), who has criticized the Bush administration for refusing to release the deliberations of its energy policy task force, as governor of Vermont convened a similar panel that met in secret and angered state lawmakers. Dean's group held one public hearing and after the fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but Dean refused to open the task force's private deliberations. In 1999, he offered the same argument the administration uses today for keeping deliberations of a policy task force secret. "The governor...

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who has criticized the Bush administration for refusing to release the deliberations of its energy policy task force, as governor of Vermont convened a similar panel that met in secret and angered state lawmakers. Dean's group held one public hearing and after the fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but Dean refused to open the task force's private deliberations. In 1999, he offered the same argument the administration uses today for keeping deliberations of a policy task force secret. "The governor needs to receive advice from time...

WASHINGTON - Casting aside Howard Dean (news - web sites)'s plea to tone down their criticisms, the other Democratic presidential candidates said Monday that revelations the former Vermont governor had an energy task force that met in secret like the Bush administration is further proof he is ill-suited to challenge the president next fall. "The more we learn about Howard Dean's record as governor, the more difficult position he'll be in to criticize the Bush administration," Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) said, responding to an Associated Press story Sunday. AP reported that though Dean has demanded the...

Dean Vermont Energy Group Met in Private By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean (news - web sites) has demanded release of secret deliberations of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force. But as Vermont governor, Dean had an energy task force that met in secret and angered state lawmakers. Dean's group held one public hearing and after-the-fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but the Vermont governor refused to open the task force's closed-door deliberations. In 1999, Dean offered the same argument...

Dean Hits Cheney Task Force but Had Own AP Enterprise: Dean Criticizes Cheney Task Force but Had Own Secret Energy Group The Associated Press WASHINGTON Dec. 28 — Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean has demanded release of secret deliberations of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. But as Vermont governor, Dean had an energy task force that met in secret and angered state lawmakers. Dean's group held one public hearing and after-the-fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but the Vermont governor refused to open the task force's closed-door deliberations. In 1999,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) said on Monday it would hear Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s case for keeping his energy task force papers secret.   The high court said Cheney's Justice Department (news - web sites) lawyers could present detailed arguments on why he should not have to comply with a judge's order to hand over details of White House contacts with the energy industry.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney should be forced to divulge information about his energy task force, a government watchdog group told the Supreme Court on Friday, arguing that his claim of immunity was laughable. In papers filed with the top U.S. court, Judicial Watch, said Cheney should be made to comply with a lower court order to release information about the task force's contacts with the energy industry in 2001. Cheney has made "repeated attempts to transform the actual issues ... into ones of urgent constitutional concern," lawyers for Judicial Watch said, but: "No such issues exist." Cheney's...

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court rebuffed Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), refusing to intervene in a lawsuit delving into the role of business executives and industry lobbyists in formulating the Bush administration's energy plan in 2001. The administration won only three votes in favor of rehearing the request to step into the case in which Cheney and his energy task force are being ordered to turn over a large number of documents to the conservative group Judicial Watch and the environmental group Sierra Club (news - web sites). The request for a rehearing went to nine...

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court dealt a setback to the Bush administration Tuesday, refusing to stop a lawsuit delving into Vice President Dick Cheney's contacts with the energy industry as his task force was drafting the White House's energy policy. In a 2-1 ruling, the court rejected the government's arguments that the lawsuit would be an unconstitutional intrusion on the operations of the executive office of the president. Cheney and administration officials "have not satisfied the heavy burden" required for the appeals court to get involved in the case, wrote appeals judge David Tatel. Appeals judge Harry Edwards concurred...

12:10PM Cheney energy task force ordered to turn over documents by Rex Nutting WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney and the energy task force he headed in 2001 must reveal which industry executives helped formulate its recommendations for national energy policy, or else make a more specific case for executive privilege. In a 2-1 vote, the appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that a suit filed by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club could proceed. The administration had sought a blanket exemption from laws that require federal agencies to conduct their...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge warned Bush administration lawyers Friday he would reject efforts to block the release of records on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force unless the White House provides specific reasons. At a court hearing on two lawsuits, the Justice Department revealed Secretary of State Colin Powell may have been invited to some of the task force meetings. The department provided no details. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan told government lawyers that simply citing special presidential privileges or the Constitution would not be enough to keep task force records from public view. "It is...

Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today announced that a federal court has ruled in its favor against Vice President Cheney and his Energy Task Force. The 83 page opinion was issued late yesterday by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan and lambasted the arguments put forward by the Bush Justice Department seeking to prevent any inquiry into the operations of the Energy Task Force. After the Vice President rejected Judicial Watch’s request that his Task Force open its meetings to the public, Judicial Watch was forced to file suit in July, 2001. A...