White House Subpoenaed Over Contacts With Enron

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON -- Escalating the confrontation between the legislative and the executive branches over the Enron bankruptcy, a Senate committee Wednesday issued the first congressional subpoenas directed at the Bush White House, seeking information about its contacts with officials of the energy giant.

A few hours after the subpoenas were issued, the White House provided the committee with summaries of dozens of contacts--including letters, telephone calls and meetings--between Enron officials and the administration. The summaries were being prepared before the committee action, the White House said.

The issuance of the subpoenas came after the administration, in a separate fight, filed court papers seeking dismissal of a first-ever lawsuit by the General Accounting Office against the executive branch. The suit concerns private meetings held by Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force with industry groups.

The White House contends that turning over any executive branch information to Congress would make it more difficult for future presidents and their staffs to seek candid advice. The Democrats, for their part, are equally intent on asserting their oversight powers.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), approved the subpoenas on a party-line vote as part of its investigation into whether the government could have done more to prevent Enron’s collapse.

The subpoenas--issued to the executive office of the president and to Cheney’s office--seek information on White House contacts with Enron representatives about appointments to regulatory agencies and the administration’s energy policy. They also request Enron-related communications between the White House and federal agencies.

White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said the administration was perplexed that Lieberman had chosen “this confrontational approach rather than working cooperatively.”

In a nine-page letter to Lieberman sent late Wednesday, the administration said it had found “no instance in which Enron approached any person within the executive office of the president or the office of the vice president seeking help in connection with its financial difficulties prior to bankruptcy.”

The White House-Enron contacts listed in the letter were more extensive than had previously been disclosed, though many included large group meetings, telephone calls, letters or ceremonial events, such as the 2001 White House Easter egg roll.

The White House listed more than a dozen meetings--most already publicized--between senior administration officials and Enron representatives last year. Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay called and wrote White House personnel director Clay Johnson recommending appointing Patrick H. Wood III and Nora Brownell, among five others, to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While those two were named, the White House said Lay had recommended 21 people, of whom “only three ultimately received appointments.”

White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales had asked Lieberman to delay the subpoenas, noting that he was searching White House visitor entry files and e-mails in an effort to cooperate.

But Lieberman, a potential challenger to President Bush in 2004, contended that the White House was not providing everything he needed for his probe. After two months of unsuccessful negotiations with the administration, he said, “this back-and-forth has continued, which has ultimately frustrated the committee’s work and frustrated my patience.”

“This administration believes that the involuntary release of any information will ultimately unravel presidential prerogatives,” said Marshall Wittmann, a scholar at the conservative Hudson Institute. “The Bush White House views congressional subpoenas like Transylvanian vampires view garlic.”

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, added: “The Bush-Cheney administration is unusually interested in preserving its executive privileges and maintaining secrecy about its own decisions.... “

“They’re violating the basic rules of modern-day politics: get information out quickly and completely, and support government in the sunshine instead of the shade,” Sabato said. “All the Bush administration accomplishes in doing that is to convince people that it has something to hide.”

But he noted: “It’s also true that the Democrats want Enron to be a major issue during the fall campaign.”

The Justice Department filed court papers on Tuesday, seeking to dismiss the GAO lawsuit. In a statement issued Tuesday, a department spokeswoman said, “The GAO’s assertion of virtually unlimited authority to investigate the executive branch would revolutionize and violate the separation-of-powers doctrine that has made our nation’s government so strong.”

The president also has fought with fellow Republicans over access to information. Last December, Bush invoked executive privilege in rejecting a subpoena issued by the GOP chairman of the House Government Reform Committee for the Justice Department to turn over records related to Clinton administration fund-raising and a decades-old Boston mob case.

Lieberman said he was not accusing the White House of wrongdoing in its dealings with Enron. “The clear message I’ve gotten from the White House is that they’re not going to give us what we want,” Lieberman said.

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) said that he saw no justification for subpoenaing the White House.

“Unlike the SEC, no one at the White House was responsible for monitoring Enron’s public disclosures,” he said. “Unlike the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, no one at the White House was responsible for regulating Enron’s energy business.”