White House Told to Save Energy Records

A federal judge directed the White House on Tuesday to save records from energy task force meetings and warned the Bush administration it must take seriously a private group’s lawsuit seeking the records.

President Bush has refused to turn over records of meetings with Enron executives and others who advised the administration on energy policy last year.

Congress’ investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, is expected to sue soon for the records’ release. Tuesday’s hearing involved a similar lawsuit, filed in July by the private group Judicial Watch.

“I get the feeling the government’s underestimating the seriousness of this case,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan told Justice Department lawyer Anne Weismann.

He asked Weismann where the records were. The office of Vice President Dick Cheney and eight agencies that Weismann said have information should maintain them, Sullivan said.

The Justice Department already had instructed the White House and the Commerce, Energy and Treasury departments to keep all Enron records.

The judge also asked if the White House would claim executive privilege if he sought information about meetings as part of the lawsuit. Weismann said administration officials may, but it would not be their entire defense.

Enron’s collapse last fall has renewed interest in records of Bush’s energy policy task force, which was run by the vice president. Bush is a longtime friend of former Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay.

Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman told Sullivan that months before the company’s failure, his organization was worried that executives of Enron and others were secretly “exercising undue influence over the vice president, the executive branch.”

His group, best known for multiple suits it filed against the Clinton administration, wants details of the meetings. Judicial Watch sued under a 1972 law intended to promote openness for presidential panels.