Comments on the Judge Rebuffs Effort to Obtain Records on Cheney Task Force By David Stout for the New York Times.
(Quote below from William Rivers Pitt for Truthout)

Federal Judge and Bush appointee John D. Bates has thrown out the case, based on a separation of powers argument that claims the GAO “had not suffered any personal injury and had no genuine stake in the outcome of the litigation.” Judge Bates spent two years working for Kenneth Starr and the Independent Counsel’s office during the investigation into President Bill Clinton’s sex life. Section 455 of Title 28 of the United States Code stipulates that a judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” That, and the incredible narrowness of the legal parameters of this decision, almost guarantees this case a contentious trip before the United States Supreme Court.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.11A.bates-cheney.htm
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(*Editors Note [1] — William Rivers Pitt | When crafting the energy policy for America, Dick Cheney went behind closed, locked doors with the moguls of the energy industry. On at least six different occasions, those moguls belonged to the Enron Corporation, the company that is now the gold standard for corporate fraud. Enron stands accused of a variety of crimes, including the gerrymandering of the California energy grid; they darkened the state on several occasions to line their pockets. The General Accounting Office sued Cheney to try and get to the bottom of these meetings, so as to determine whether or not Enron and the others sought to bend American energy policies around their own profit motives, in defiance of the needs of the people.
Federal Judge and Bush appointee John D. Bates has thrown out the case, based on a separation of powers argument that claims the GAO “had not suffered any personal injury and had no genuine stake in the outcome of the litigation.” Judge Bates spent two years working for Kenneth Starr and the Independent Counsel’s office during the investigation into President Bill Clinton’s sex life. Section 455 of Title 28 of the United States Code stipulates that a judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” That, and the incredible narrowness of the legal parameters of this decision, almost guarantees this case a contentious trip before the United States Supreme Court.
(*Editors Note [2] — Jennifer Van Bergen | D.C. District Court Judge Bates dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Comptroller of General of the United States brought in furtherance of an investigation by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), which Judge Bates referred to as “an agent of the legislative branch.” The suit sought “to require the Vice President to produce information relating to the President’s decision-making on national energy policy.” Bates dismissed the suit because “the Comptroller General has suffered no personal injury as a private citizen, and any institutional injury exists only in his capacity as an agent of Congress — an entity that itself has issued no subpoena.”
The decision is puzzling given that, according to Bates, “[u]nder statute, the Comptroller General is granted broad authority to carry out investigations and evaluations for the benefit of Congress,” and is specifically authorized under the same statute “to enforce these investigatory powers by bringing a civil action … to require ‘the head of [an] agency to produce a record.” Bates claims, however, that the court does not need to reach the issue of GAO’s powers, since the Comptroller has suffered no injury.
The decision stands in stark contrast to statements made by Bates during his tenure as Deputy Independent Counsel during the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to 1997. He declared that the special prosecutors intended merely to “diligently and properly follow[] relevant leads in an attempt to discover the truth.”)
Go To Original:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/politics/09CND-CHEN.html
Judge Rebuffs Effort to Obtain Records on Cheney Task Force
By David Stout
New York Times
Monday, 9 December, 2002
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 — In a case involving bedrock constitutional issues, a federal judge today threw out a lawsuit brought by an agency of Congress against Vice President Dick Cheney over the formulation of the administration’s energy policy.
Judge John D. Bates of Federal District Court found that Comptroller General David M. Walker, the head of the General Accounting Office, did not have sufficient standing to sue the vice president.
Mr. Walker had asked the judge to order the White House to reveal the identities of industry executives who helped the administration develop its energy policy last year.
In declining to do so, and in dismissing Mr. Walker’s suit, Judge Bates said that granting the G.A.O. chief’s request “would fly in the face of the restricted role of the federal courts under the Constitution.”
When arguments were held before Judge Bates on Sept. 27, lawyers for Mr. Cheney argued — successfully, as it turned out today — that the comptroller general lacked standing because he had not suffered any personal injury and had no genuine stake in the outcome of the litigation.
In deciding for Mr. Cheney on relatively narrow grounds, Judge Bates said the Supreme Court has made it clear over the years that a would-be party to a case involving constitutional separation of powers must meet “especially rigorous” standards just to have standing to bring such a suit.
This, Mr. Walker has simply failed to do, the judge said, because he has suffered no personal injury and was merely acting to aid Congress.
The issues raised in the suit are so important that an appeal, perhaps to the Supreme Court eventually, would not be surprising. But Mr. Walker said he would confer with Congressional leaders “on a bipartisan basis” before deciding what to do next.
“We are very disappointed with the judge’s decision,” Mr. Walker said in a statement. “We are in the process of reviewing and analyzing the decision to fully understand the bases for it and its potential implications.”
Over the years, the General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, has conducted thousands of investigations and evaluations of government programs and activities, submitting stacks of reports to the lawmakers.
But the case of Walker v. Cheney marked the first time in the 81-year history of the G.A.O. that the comptroller general had asked a court to order a member of the executive branch to turn over records to Congress.
The development of the Bush administration’s energy policy has been marked by deep differences between the White House and Democratic lawmakers. Numerous energy executives, including some from the Enron Corporation, met on several occasions in 2001 with Mr. Cheney and the energy task force that he headed.
The comptroller general, with the backing of some Democrats in Congress, wanted Mr. Cheney to reveal the names of industry executives who helped the administration develop its policy. The administration argued that such an order would be an unprecedented and unwarranted intrusion into executive branch powers and would hobble an administration’s essential, legitimate ability to receive frank information and advice.
Judge Bates, who was appointed to the bench last year by President Bush, noted that neither House of Congress and no Congressional committee had authorized the comptroller general to file the suit. Rather, the judge noted, the suit was filed as the result of a G.A.O. investigation begun at the request of Representatives John D. Dingell and Henry A. Waxman, both Democrats.
Mr. Dingell was the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, while Mr. Waxman was the ranking minority member on the Government Reform Committee.
“Plaintiff is not an independent constitutional actor,” Judge Bates said of Mr. Walker. Rather, the judge said, the comptroller general is “subservient to Congress.”
Significantly, Judge Bates said, the full Congress had issued no subpoena for the information sought in the suit. The absence of full Congressional backing leaves to “the realm of speculation” whether there is any need, or justification, for the court to try to exercise its power by ordering the executive branch to do something, the judge said.
(Judge Bates’s ruling can be read online by clicking onto the Web site of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia: www.dcd.uscourts.gov/.)
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You may read the entire decision in Walker v. Cheney here.)
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)