Cheney to Court?
The showdown with the GAO might come soon.

January 16, 2002 9:15 a.m.

o far, the collapse of Enron seems to be losing steam as a political scandal — while gaining momentum as a corporate scandal of Milken/Keating dimensions. While that's mostly good news for the White House, it now appears that the Enron matter is making things worse for the administration on one front: the long-standing conflict between Vice President Dick Cheney and the General Accounting Office over Cheney's energy task force.

The two sides have been at loggerheads since last spring, when the GAO, acting at the request of Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, asked Cheney to provide the names of everyone who consulted with the National Energy Policy Development Group. Cheney, who had taken great care to comply with the law allowing such meetings to remain confidential, refused. Negotiations between the two sides went nowhere, and in late August and early September, the GAO sent strong signals it would sue the vice president to get the information. "On September 10, there was virtually no question we were headed to court," GAO chief David Walker told the Washington Post.

Then came September 11. After the terrorist attacks, the GAO held back, not wanting, in the words of one agency source, to "tie down" the White House at the height of the war on terrorism. Now, however, it appears the GAO is ready to press ahead. A few days ago, Walker released a statement promising a decision "within a month," and sources say it might actually come as soon as next week, when Congress reconvenes.

Although no one at the GAO has said that the agency has decided to sue, Walker's earlier statements on the issue — plus a report in Legal Times a few days ago that the GAO has "quietly asked at least three private attorneys" about representing the agency in the lawsuit — leave little doubt that the GAO plans to press ahead.

Why? According to the agency source, three factors — Enron's collapse, continuing Senate deliberations on an energy bill, and the diminishing urgency of the war on terrorism — have all played a role in pushing the agency toward litigation. "I think the Enron thing makes it a different ballgame," says the source, adding that the GAO is "getting more and more congressional requests to look at different aspects of all the issues that affect Enron." Since the GAO is the investigative arm of Congress, those requests are in effect memos from the agency's boss — requests the agency will not likely refuse. As for the other factors, the Senate energy debate will keep interest in Cheney's policy high among Democrats there, and successes in the war on terrorism have eased the GAO's fears about tying down the White House at a critical time.

So far there are no indications that Cheney will give in. The vice president has consistently said that releasing the names of the private businesspeople and other outsiders who consulted with the task force would make it difficult for the administration to seek outside advice in the future. "People will not engage us in candor" if they knew their advice would appear in the press, one Cheney aide told National Review last year. "We would be chilling the process in the future."

For its part, the GAO says it's not really asking for much. "People think we want minutes and the notes people took" and other deliberative information, says the GAO source. "That's not what we want. We want to know who met with whom, about what, when, where, and what did it cost. No one's going to be surprised by what they turn over."

If they turn it over.