Court shields Cheney records

[groover]

Posted on Wed, May. 11, 2005Court shields Cheney records

Appeals judges said he could keep secret the notes from '01 closed-door meetings where energy policy was crafted.
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit that had sought to force Vice President Cheney to turn over records of closed-door meetings his office held in 2001 to craft the administration's energy policy. The decision was a major legal and political victory for the White House.

The unanimous ruling accedes to the Bush administration's argument that forcing the executive office to produce details of internal policy discussions is unnecessarily intrusive and violates a president's constitutional powers.

In separate lawsuits filed five years ago, which were later joined as one, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club contended that members of large energy corporations and industry groups effectively became members of Cheney's energy task force and helped write the administration's policy, now before Congress.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded yesterday that the two groups had failed to show that the task force itself was made up of people other than federal officials. Therefore, the court said, the government watchdog organization and the environmental advocacy group could not prove the vice president had a duty to disclose the membership and the notes of those task force meetings. The opinion cited the declarations of two senior administration officials as key to their decision.

"The only individuals the President named to the [task force] were federal officials; only federal officials signed the final report," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the court. He noted that one of Cheney's deputy assistants for energy policy, Karen Knutson, reported in an affidavit that industry members did participate in smaller stakeholder meetings but that these "were simply forums to collect individual views rather than to bring a collective judgment to bear."

Unusual, for two reasons

In a statement, Cheney's office said the court guarded the confidentiality of internal deliberations and that the Constitution protects such deliberations as essential to informed decision-making.

The decision by the full court is unusual for two reasons, according to law professors and attorneys involved in the case.

First, it's unanimous, an atypical result for a court whose members hold a wide spectrum of views on government regulation and the breadth of executive powers. Second, it accepts largely as fact the assertions of two senior administration officials, without allowing the opposing side to challenge or question them.

The legal campaign to reveal the details of how Cheney's energy task force operated has had a complicated history. First, a federal District Court judge rejected several of the suit's claims but said he would allow the plaintiffs to seek some documents from the vice president's office about the energy task force. The government eventually appealed to the Court of Appeals, which ruled in a divided opinion in September 2003 that the White House could possibly protect the materials from public view but that the administration needed to do so by citing executive privilege, a step it had not taken.

Weighing an appeal

The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which last June sent the case back to the Appeals Court. The high court found the District Court judge's original plan for allowing the groups to seek documents about the energy task force was overly broad, and it also explicitly directed the Appeals Court to consider "the weighty separation-of-powers objections" of the government and to reexamine whether the groups' complaint should be dismissed.

David Bookbinder, a lead attorney on the case for the Sierra Club, said yesterday's decision kept the public in the dark about White House operations. He said the two groups would decide in coming days whether to appeal.

"As a policy matter, we see the Bush administration has succeeded in its efforts to keep secret how industry crafted the administration's energy policy," he said. "As a legal matter, it's a defeat for efforts to have open government and for the public to know how their elected officials are conducting business."
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Whew! Back to business as usual.

[BFrank]

... and Bush is running around the world squawking about "freedom" and "democracy". Apparently he doesn't believe in an open government, though.

I agree, Beefy.


I still say that government should hold all of their sessions in the parking lot of the 7-11 down the street from the White House, and it should be broadcast live on the three major networks.


It's only fair, I'm sure you'll agree.

[Dr Dave]

So, let me get this straight: The Vice President does not have to disclose what happened in his policy-making meetings because the lobbyists who participated were not formally invited to these meetings and did not put their names on the resultant policy recommendations. In short, if they were not there officially, they were not there at all.

Makes sense to me.

[groover]

The customer is always right. A good politician takes care of the people who bought and paid for him. What do you expect them to do, serve the public interest altruistically?

[Coda]

The two private groups that sued failed to establish that the government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's industry contacts.


This was an 8-0 decision.

It made for good political theatre, nothing more.

Isn't it time for the democrats to start offering solutions for the problems our country has instead of the constant whining that is parroted around here?

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Coda

The two private groups that sued failed to establish that the government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's industry contacts.


This was an 8-0 decision.

It made for good political theatre, nothing more.

Isn't it time for the democrats to start offering solutions for the problems our country has instead of the constant whining that is parroted around here?

You mean problems like a completely corrupted policymaking process? Fire away, man--what do you propose?

Originally Posted by David Erickson

You mean problems like a completely corrupted policymaking process? Fire away, man--what do you propose?

Coda,

Please allow me to translate:

"I am rubber and you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you".

I'm sure that must have been a favorite of our resident Satan. Probably still is.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Coda,

Please google "Judicial Watch". You'll find it's not a Democratic Party organization. I believe they were the same group who sued to have the list of participants in Hillary's universal health care debacle back in the '90s. As a matter of fact, I believe the leader of Judicial Watch is stanch conservative Larry Klayman. If I'm wrong someone correct me.

But once again you've made me chuckle. As a Republican Party hack you're the best.

You know what? I don't give a crap about the environment anymore. I'm 49, no kids, I'll be dead before the shit hits the fan (if it does).

Basically, the Administration's energy policy is the status quo. Keep doing what we're doing (whatver that is). Regulation sucks because it brings down profits. that's the bottom line with these cats. What'll eventually happen is that we'll have some massive ecological screw up in the future then some environmental law will be proposed as crisis management.

As for transparency in government? We've made it this far without it. Why start now?

[jesus marion joseph]

While I agree that transparency is the ideal with regards to policy-making, this case should serve as notice to everyone that lobbyists are often the ones who write the language that eventually becomes law. Obviously, they have an agenda when doing so. I'm not sure that lobbyists should not be allowed to attempt to influence legislation, but it's been going on since way before Dick Cheney was VP, and it's not the exclusive bailiwick of Republicans, either. Legislation is like sausage. Everybody wants the end result, but you really don't want to watch what gets ground up in the process.

[Coda]

I may be a bit ignorant as I'm under the impression that the federal appeals court dismissed the lawsuit with a verdit of 8-0. I thought Closed Door policies were intended to allow folks to speak without fear that their words would make it into the public forums.

Was there not a public energy bill that was proposed for all to see? Wouldn't the contents of this bill become law if approved and not discussions that took place in private?

I have an unrelated question. Why has no one started a thread on the Hillary Clinton fund raising fiasco? Where is your outrage with this little ditty?

[Noj]

It's the Republican motto: They do it too! They do it too! They do it too!

Hell, I just want Republicans and Democrats alike to serve the people well. Way too much to ask, I know.

Originally Posted by Noj

It's the Republican motto: They do it too! They do it too! They do it too!

Yeah, you are absolutely right. The biggest problem being that the Democratic supporters have no clue that they DO!

I mean, if you believed half the shit the liberlas say around here you'd think to yourself, "my god, those poor, poor Democrats".



Just look at how violently protective folks like Goodz and David Erickson get when it comes to their boys. What did Erickson say the other day? Liberlas don't foam at the mouth.

Good fucking lord, people!!! If only my head could reach them there clouds.......

Hell, I just want Republicans and Democrats alike to serve the people well. Way too much to ask, I know.

I believe it is.

Especially now with the partisan divide being as wide as it is.

[Noj]

I'm just tired of reading: Republicans are up to something shady and bad/Republicans defend it by pointing to something similar that Democrats have done at some point...

I'm tired of those sort of excuses, which do nothing to solve the problem being addressed. Two wrongs don't make a right, and I don't care which party is responsible. Citing a past wrongdoing as a precedent for current wrongdoing is counterproductive.

I think it's more about dealing with the frustration of selective memory, or just plain memory loss in your opponents.

No, it is no excuse.

I agree with you completely.

But it also grinds my ass when the libbypoos around here react with such shock and anger to the same sort of shit their own party has engaged in.

But some people are hell bent on letting politics and the crooks who practice it dictate the ebb and flow of their lives.

[Coda]

The watchdog group Judicial Watch -- which has pursued former president Bill Clinton and his wife for years -- filed paperwork Monday urging the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the Rosen case. The group alleges that Hillary Clinton had to have known that the true costs of the Hollywood fundraiser exceeded the $401,000 Rosen reported in campaign finance records.

"Hillary Clinton's campaign finance scandal is just as serious as the allegations brought against Tom DeLay," the group's president, Tom Fitton, said in a statement this week. "And yet, while DeLay has faced an ethics firestorm, Hillary Clinton's legal and ethical transgressions have been largely ignored."

[groover]

I suppose it might seem odd to some that the House majority leader should draw more scrutiny than a minority freshman Senator, especially when she's the reviled wife of a reviled former President.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

groover,

Hillary's reviled on her own, Bill ain't necesaary. Something about not wanting to "just bake cookies".

Message to Scott and Coda: YOUR GUYS ARE IN CHARGE. No one gives a rat's ass about what the party out of power does.

Just like Noj said, everytime some Republican screw up occurs some Republican Party hack sputters "... but Clinton...". Hey, there's a Clinton, Maryland too.

Coda, no ones holding a gun to your head, If you want to talk about the latest Clinton investigation just start a thread. I ain't starting one because I've lost track of all the Clinton investigations.

By the way, what was the result of the Whitewater Investigation?

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Hillary's reviled on her own, Bill ain't necesaary. Something about not wanting to "just bake cookies".

I wonder if Bill really is "reviled" now that he's out of the seat of power. Speaking personally, I feel much more able to view his two terms as president from an objective standpoint now, as opposed to seven or eight years ago. Having said that, I'm in the middle of reading "Living History", Hillary's White House memoir. Talk about selective memory. Oy.