Dick Cheney can't toss records, says court

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/09/busted-dick-che.html

Countdown to Crawford: Tracking the final days of the Bush administration

Dick Cheney can't toss records, says court
5:40 AM, September 21, 2008

Vice President Dick Cheney waves before boarding his plane in Milan Sept. 7, 2008 after an overseas trip

Vice President Dick Cheney has a passion for secrecy.

He went to court to protect details about the role of energy executives in private meetings he led to develop the Bush administration's national energy strategy.

He went to Capitol Hill to argue for an exemption to a proposed ban on torture of terror suspects. He wanted to make sure the president had the flexibility to order water boarding or other horrific techniques to prevent a terrorist attack.

Now he's gone to court again to argue that a vice president need only preserve records central to his job as the official who presides over the U.S. Senate or relating to specific tasks assigned by the president. That would narrow the pile considerably.

Saturday, a judge from the U.S. District Court in D.C. rejected that idea, giving a first-round victory to a group of historians and others at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who had sued him in court, concerned about their eventual access to the records.

In her ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly cast doubt on the vice president's argument, given that the Presidential Records Act was specifically amended to prevent former President Richard Nixon from destroying any of the tapes or documents that led to his resignation.

And here's the kicker: Any violation by the preliminary injunction is punishable by immediate contempt -- including the power to jail the offender.

-- Johanna Neuman