Administration's review of Cheney papers a slow go

By The Associated Press

10.30.02

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WASHINGTON — Seven days before a court-imposed deadline, the Bush administration said yesterday it had fully reviewed only two of 12 boxes of documents at issue in lawsuits over Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.

In a three-page court filing, the administration said it was also sorting through 10,000 e-mails to find several thousand messages about the Cheney panel. Two private groups are suing because the Bush administration refuses to release any documents about the energy plan it drafted last year.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the White House until Nov. 5 to either release the documents or compile a list identifying each document that it contends should remain confidential.

The judge said on Oct. 17 that he was shocked to hear from the government that it had not yet examined all of the documents. It was not clear until yesterday precisely how much material was at issue in the case.

Eight attorneys are reviewing the documents, the Justice Department's court papers stated. Processing the e-mails will be "equally, if not more, time-consuming, due to the expected quantity," the department added.

"We are surprised that after the Justice Department represented to the court that they were well along in the process of reviewing documents that it turns out 10 days later they've only gone through only two out of 12 boxes," said David Bookbinder, senior attorney at the environmental group Sierra Club. He said the Bush administration was playing "fast and loose with the truth."

The Sierra Club filed its lawsuit seeking documents from the task force last January. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a similar suit more than a year ago. The two suits have been consolidated.

In its court filing, the government said that it had "preliminarily reviewed" 24 boxes of documents some time ago, but had not processed them because it opposed their release. The administration has narrowed down the material at issue in the case to the documents in the 12 boxes and "ten boxes remain for final review," the Justice Department stated.

Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch said that "by asserting privilege over documents they've never even reviewed, the Bush administration goes beyond the Nixon administration in terms of arrogance."

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