Re: Judge orders release of Cheney visiting logs

["Petem" <petem001@xxxxxxxxx>]

here we go again


"Robert L Bass" <robertbass1@xxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de news:
baGdneo70KGk-KXYnZ2dnUVZ_u-dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to
> release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office
> and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election-season
> debate over lobbyists' White House access.
>
> While researching the access lobbyists and others had on the White House,
> The Washington Post asked in June for two years of White House visitor
> logs. The Secret Service refused to process the request, which government
> attorneys called "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of
> the vice presidency."
>
> U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said Wednesday that, by the end of
> next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least
> identity them and justify why they are being withheld.
>
>
>
> The Secret Service can still try to withhold the records but, in a written
> ruling Thursday, Urbina questioned the agency's primary argument - that
> the logs are protected by Cheney's right to executive privilege.
>
> Republicans have suffered a spate of bad news lately. Ohio Rep. Bob Ney
> pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying investigation, Florida Rep.
> Mark Foley resigned after reports of his sexually explicit Internet
> conversations with teenage House pages, and the FBI intensified its
> corruption investigation into Pennsylvania Rep. Curt Weldon.
>
> Further ammunition for Dems?
> If Cheney's visitor logs show meetings with lobbyists, releasing them just
> weeks before Election Day could provide ammunition to Democrats.
>
> "The political price is very high," said L. Sandy Maisel, director of the
> Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs at Colby College. "Even more than that,
> Cheney has a vested interest in keeping them out of public eye at a time
> when people will pay attention to them. After the election, they will pay
> much less attention."
>
> The newspaper sought logs for anyone visiting Cheney, his legal counsel,
> chief spokesman and other top aides and advisers.
>
> The Secret Service had no comment on the ruling Thursday. In court
> documents, government attorneys said releasing the documents would
> infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice.
>
> "This case is about protecting the effective functioning of the vice
> presidency under the Constitution," attorneys wrote.
>
> A lawsuit over similar records revealed last month that Republican
> activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed - key figures in the Jack
> Abramoff lobbying scandal - landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush
> White House.
>
> The Post cited those records, which were released to the Democratic Party
> and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as evidence that
> the documents should be released.
>
> Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
>
>