Judicial Watch
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For Immediate Release |
| Apr 17, 2003 |
Contact: Press Office
202-646-5188
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“YOU HAVE NO CASE!”: APPELLATE JUDGES LAMBASTE CHENEY LEGAL POSITION ON ENERGY TASK FORCE
“Why Are We Here?” Court Asks of Vice President’s Lawyer
Argument Heard in Landmark Open Meetings Law Case Against Energy Task Force
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, presented argument today before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in its ongoing lawsuit concerning Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force. The appeals panel was considering whether the Vice President and his Energy Task Force should be immune from discovery into the identities of Task Force participants, how the Task Force operated, and the role of the Vice President in the Task Force. Lawyers for the Vice President were seeking mandamus intervention by the appeals court, after losing their legal arguments before the lower court trying to exempt the Vice President from any inquiries at all.
In argument before the three judge panel, the Vice President’s government lawyer was questioned severely by two of the three panel members about the basis of their extraordinary request for appellate intervention. Judge Harry T. Edwards demanded to know “why are we here” and stated that the Vice President had “no case.” Judge David S. Tatel supported Judge Edwards’s analysis. Both jurists pointed out that there was no authority for the appeals court to intervene to protect the Vice President from discovery. Judge A. Raymond Randolph, the only Republican appointee on the panel (appointed by President George H.W. Bush), was more sympathetic to the Vice President.
Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in 2001 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (open meetings law) after it was rebuffed in its requests for information on the Task Force by Vice President Cheney. Several months later, the Energy Task Force was also sued by the Sierra Club, which is now a co-plaintiff in Judicial Watch=s lawsuit. The Vice President is now asserting that he and the Task Force cannot be questioned at all about the nature of the Task Force, which Judicial Watch alleges to have included members such as Kenneth Lay, the former CEO of Enron.
“The writing is on the wall. Vice President Cheney and his Energy Task Force will finally have to answer questions about exactly who was participating in the formulation of our nation’s energy policy,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
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