Let's DeClassify Deferral Dick

Cheney is reported to have acquired over $220 million dollars, PRIOR to becoming vice president. With wife Lynn sitting on the board of Lockheed for sixteen years and Dick at Halliburton, they could really clean up.

http://stateoftheday.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-cheney-energy-task-force-docs-are.html


Why the Cheney Energy Task Force Docs Are Now Fair Game

Lately it seems that the DOJ and Congress may be looking at more than mere perjury charges with respect to the Administration's handling of the Iraq War.

Enter Democrat Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) who asked Big Oil CEOs in early November, 2005, whether they or their companies participated in Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force in 2001.

It turns out that they probably lied about their involvement. Big Oil CEOs May Have Made False Statements to Congress About Involvement in Cheney's Secret Energy Panel. You can't lie to Congress (No No). That is a crime under the "False Statements" statute, 18 U.S.C. §1001, which states that even individuals who are not under oath violate federal law if they provide false statements or information to Congress.

1) First we learned about WHIG. Focus of CIA Leak Probe Appears to Widen

2) Then we learned more about Cheney. Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case

3) Then Scooter Libby gets indicted and people notice that Cheney has an "odor" about him.Public's faith in Bush, Cheney eroding: poll

4) Most recently, we find out that there is a strong possibility that the Nation's top oil executives lied to Congress when they testified that they never consulted with Cheney's energy task force in early 2001.Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force

5) All of the above makes me wonder - Are the Cheney Energy Policy Documents Fair Game?

Background of Cheney's Energy Task Force (Pre-9/11) and the Initial Effort to Compel DisclosureIn the Early days of the Bush administration and prior to May of 2001, Vice President Cheney participated in a study by the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG).Details of the study and its participants were kept confidential. The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch later sued in federal court for the production of energy documents relating to the discussion and creation of a particular NEPDG policy report dated May 16, 2001. Plaintiffs contended that the NEPDG meetings were subject to Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) disclosure requirements.Plaintiffs suspected that business executives of the energy industry played an improper role in shaping the policy report in question.A previous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), issued and successfully litigated against the Dept of Commerce by Judicial Watch, has revealed that maps and charts of Iraqi Oil Fields, as well as lists of foreign suitors for such oil fields, were already being drawn up as early as March of 2001.The Legal Case for DisclosurePlaintiffs' case went all the way up to the Supreme Court.(Remember when Cheney went duck hunting with Scalia the week before the case was to come before the Court? )On June 24, 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled that NEPDG and Vice-President Cheney were not subject to the procedural disclosure requirements of FACA. (The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires public disclosure of government public interest policy meetings). In the June 24, 2004 ruling, the Supreme Court essentially decided that, in this particular case, the need for information with respect to the resolution of a civil action did not merit disruption of the separation of powers doctrine.















Lynn Cheney's book for children sets the mindset early with children modeling the Iwa Jima statue ready to die for God and country before they reach grade three.

I suppose it is somewhat less hypocritical than the lesbian novel written by Lynn a few years back ..that she has tried to bury more recently.