Aserious question about 'executive privelege' (Cheney energy meetings)

[Stinky The Clown]

We all know Cheney's primed to push the executive privelege crap al the way to the Supremes ... which will put any resolution beyond his term in office.

So I'm thinking ... why bother? Is it possible that the Dems could subpoena the non-governmental participants in the meetings? Can these people - participants but ones who are outside govenment - claim executive privelege?

[savemefromdumbya]

1. the non-government people are probably all dead

or if not soon will be if Dems subpoena?

[BOSSHOG]

2. An aside question

Didn't dickhead have his secret meetings before he was sworn in as VEEP? Therefore negating executive privilege? I doubt any member of that commission could claim a privilege reserved for the president. They then would be faced with refusing to testify or suicide.

cheney's energy task force will prove bushco wanted war and thought that a terrorist attack would be a nice accelerator. And when condemning the scum let us not hold back scorn for his supporters.

[dubykc]

3. Yes, to the best of my recollection the "secret" energy meetings...

at least most of them occurred prior to Dickie-boy being sworn in.

[meegbear]

5. They met in 2001...

Vice President Richard Cheney's persistent imbroglio during the Junior Bush regime has been with his National Energy Policy Development Group (created by Executive Order) through which during the early months of 2001 he was taking dictation from Enron and studying petro maps of Iraq, and wants to keep all those notes a secret.

"At issue is whether Cheney allowed private energy lobbyists and big-name campaign contributors to participate in the work of the group, and if so, whether that information should be made public."

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, and Judicial Watch, a government watchdog organization, have been trying through FOIA and court challenges to White House resistance, to obtain the records of the task force meetings. The organizations claim the documents will show the extent to which the task force staff met secretly with industry executives to craft the Bush administration's energy policies, such as drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and weakening power plant pollution regulations.

<snip>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cheney_Energy_Task_Force

[hughee99]

6. Isn't the basis for the subpoena that

the public has a right to know who he talked to and what "advice" they provided since Cheney was a public official? If Cheney wasn't sworn in yet, doesn't this argument go out the window as well?

[endarkenment]

4. The administration claimed no outside participants

They have kept to that story and the courts refused to allow discovery efforts to determine the truth of the administration's claims.

I have no idea if a congressional investigation would be different with respect to the executive privilege claimed by the administration.

[Tanuki]

7. Remember this? Ted Stevens refused to swear oil execs in

when they testified at a hearing last year, and some of them allegedly lied their asses off? Has this been investigated further? I recall at the time that people said lying to Congress carries the same weight as perjury even if not formally under oath.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html

"A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.


In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know"