Re: Judge orders release of Cheney visiting logs

[Robert <Robert@xxxxxxx>]

Robert L Bass wrote:
> 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.
>
>