The GAO Responds
The General Accounting Office chief says he doesn’t believe Dick Cheney is lying.

February 4, 2002 8:45 a.m.

esponding to an article on National Review Online, General Accounting Office chief David Walker said late Friday that he does not believe Vice President Dick Cheney has lied about the GAO's demands in the energy-task-force case.

In a story which appeared Friday morning, Walker said "there have been material misrepresentations of facts coming out of the White House" about the showdown between GAO and the vice president. Specifically, Walker said, those misrepresentations concerned the issue of whether the GAO is demanding notes and minutes of energy task force meetings. While the GAO had asked for notes and minutes in a demand letter sent to Cheney last July, the office quickly backed off and sent another letter to Cheney in August which specifically withdrew the request for notes and minutes. Last Sunday, however, appearing on Fox News, Cheney said flatly that the GAO was demanding notes and minutes of energy-task-force meetings. Walker called that statement "a very critical and highly material misrepresentation."

In an interview Friday evening, Walker asked to clarify his remarks. "I do not believe that Dick Cheney would knowingly lie," Walker said. "I feel very strongly about that. He is a man of great integrity. I believe he was poorly briefed by his staff." Walker said he believes Cheney's "lawyers and staff are telling him we're asking for what was in the July demand letter and they are ignoring the communications I had with his personal counsel and they are ignoring the written confirmation of what we are asking for."

Nevertheless, Walker has not changed his overall assessment of statements that have come from others in the White House. "I did say 'material misrepresentations' and I stand by that," Walker said. But he described the current atmosphere between the GAO and the White House as "supercharged" and wanted to emphasize that he does not believe Cheney has lied.

Meanwhile, Walker is keeping watch on a case in which the legal-activist group Judicial Watch is suing Cheney for release of the task force information. United States District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan handed Judicial Watch a favorable ruling Thursday when he ordered the Bush administration to submit a written explanation of why giving the information to Judicial Watch would do damage to the president's constitutional prerogatives.

"The judge's order represents a very interesting development," the GAO's Walker said in a statement Saturday. "It serves to demonstrate that the White House's constitutional argument is not as clear cut as they claim. Importantly, GAO's legal authority to obtain [task force] related information far exceeds the legal basis under which Judicial Watch and others are pursuing access to [task force] information. We look forward to reviewing the administration's response to the judge's order."