Enron: What Dick Cheney Knew (Page 2)

Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, task forces like Cheney's must conduct public meetings, must allow interested parties to attend and must keep publicly available records. But arguing "executive privilege," Cheney, his aides and Cabinet departments have refused requests for records, despite legal challenges from the General Accounting Office and private groups. One lawsuit has freed up Energy Department documents that begin to hint at the extent of the influence that energy corporations exercised over Administration policies.

Cheney also provided other official services to Enron. Copies of e-mails obtained by the New York Daily News indicate that Cheney aided an attempt by Enron to force the Maharashtra State Electricity Board in India to pay it at least $2.3 billion in connection with a failed $2.9 billion effort to develop a power plant. A June 28, 2001, e-mail from a National Security Council aide read, "Good news is that the veep mentioned Enron in his meeting with [Indian Congress Party leader] Sonia Gandhi yesterday." In an October 3, 2001, discussion with India's foreign minister, Cheney raised the issue again. And when Cheney's energy task force was finalizing its report in August, a draft document was altered to include a provision recommending that the US Secretaries of State and Energy work with India to help that country maximize its domestic oil and gas production. "The energy plan does not discuss this recommendation or explain why maximizing oil and gas production in India should be a US national energy priority," Waxman wrote in a letter to Cheney. Instead, Waxman argued, the provision "benefited Enron by formally enlisting two Cabinet secretaries in Enron's conflict with the Indian government."

With the notable exception of Waxman, the Enron-Cheney connection so far has received troublingly limited attention from Congressional Democrats. Senator Joseph Lieberman announced that a committee he heads would issue more than two dozen subpoenas that could cast light on Enron-White House contacts, but Lieberman's determination to maintain a "bipartisan" approach has so far limited the scope of the inquiry. Democratic leaders moreover appear reluctant to invite charges that they are repaying the GOP for eight years of investigations of the Clinton Administration.

Cheney's refusal to cooperate with investigators--which presidential historian Stanley Kutler refers to as part of a broad "assault on the legal and Constitutional order" by the Bush Administration--forms the most powerful argument for the appointment of a special counsel. Congress allowed the Independent Counsel Law to expire in 1999, ceding to the Attorney General the right to make such appointments. Current Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself after it was learned that he had taken campaign contributions from Enron, but his aides are free to make the call. John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote the Justice Department in January to argue, "The Enron case represents one of the largest corporate frauds in the nation's history, and the potential for conflicts of interest is so sweeping that it necessitates an outside counsel to insure public confidence." So far, however, Conyers's call has been little noted beyond the ranks of serious reformers like Representative Bob Filner, whose "sense of Congress" call for a special counsel has drawn only eight co-sponsors.

Conyers and Filner have recognized reality. Neither the Justice Department nor Congress appear to be prepared to conduct the sort of investigation that is required to expose the full extent of the Bush Administration's service to Enron. That investigation would have to be broad, since the connections with Enron are not limited to Cheney's office. From Army Secretary Thomas White, a former Enron executive, to Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, formerly on Enron's advisory council, Enron's tentacles have reached throughout the Bush White House, shaping tax, trade, energy and environmental policy. All such connections are worthy of legal and Congressional scrutiny. But make no mistake, the place to begin is at Dick Cheney's door. If there is any realistic hope of exposing the extent to which Enron's machinations corrupted US policy at home and abroad, then the Office of the Vice President is not only a good place to start, it is the essential beginning point.

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