Saturday, October 03, 2009
The Obama administration’s efforts to conceal all of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s testimony in the Valerie Plame investigation failed on Thursday, as a federal judge ordered the release of some records. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan found the Justice Department’s arguments too vague to justify withholding all of the documents.
FBI reports and notes describing Cheney’s interview with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be turned over next week to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to obtain the materials after the government rejected its Freedom of Information Act request.
The Obama administration argued that the release of Cheney’s testimony might cause other government officials to not cooperate with future investigations, for fear of their words being aired on television, such as The Daily Show, or used against them for political reasons.
Sullivan’s ruling does allow the Justice Department to keep hidden “limited information” affecting national security, personal information or communications between Cheney and former President George W. Bush.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Government Ordered to Release Much of What Cheney Told Leak Investigators (by Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post)
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Justice Department (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) (PDF)
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