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American Morning
Cheney Says He Won't Give Congressional Investigators Infornmation About Enron-Related Documents
Aired January 28, 2002 - 08:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Carry on Enron, Vice President Dick Cheney said over this past weekend that he will not give congressional investigators information about any talks with industry executives from the energy sector by the White House Energy Task Force, and that includes Enron-related documents. And autopsy results are due later today in the apparent suicide of former Enron Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter who was found dead Friday. CNN's Fred Katayama is in Houston, Texas this morning with the latest on all of this.
Good morning to you Mr. Katayama.
FRED KATAYAMA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Jack.
Well police in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land say this morning they are still continuing with their investigation. This despite the fact that the medical examiner's office has already ruled the death as suicide. The reason, police say, they're still waiting for results of the test of the physical evidence collected at the site. Physical things such as the hair fibers that were found in is car. Baxter was found dead early Friday morning in his car parked near his home in Sugar Land.
And a focus of the inquiry turns to the suicide note that Baxter left behind. Police still aren't saying where they found the note, and they say they will not disclose the contents of the note until they get permission from the Texas Attorney General's office to release that note.
Now friends of Baxter, whom I spoke to over the weekend, say that Baxter increasingly showed signs of depression recently. One friend noted that he used to sport a head of gray hair, a salt and pepper gray, but that it had turned completely white over the span of the last month. Now he was named in a whistle-blower's memo. In the memo he was seen as criticizing Enron's accounting practices, practices that eventually led to Enron's collapse - Jack.
CAFFERTY: All right, on a related front Fred, it looks like the White House is headed now for a showdown with Congress. Yesterday on ABC the vice president made it clear they will not give congressional investigators records from any of the talks that his Energy Task Force had with industry executives even if it means going to court. Listen.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The GAO authority we don't think extends, their lawyers decided last spring that in fact the GAO did not have the authority to go this far, that it's important to preserve for the president and the vice president, constitutional officers, not creations of the Congress. But important to preserve our ability to get unvarnished advice from anybody we want on any subject we want without having to put it out in the newspapers.
CAFFERTY: The White House, Fred, digging in its heels. Apparently they're going to make the investigators go to court if they want to get these records. There is some question whether the congressional investigators will get them even in that case. What are you hearing about this?
KATAYAMA: Well Jack, you know, Vice President Cheney is running a risk. The problem is that Americans are increasing growing suspicious according to a recent poll. That poll found that two- thirds of those surveyed found that, are saying that they feel that the Bush administration is hiding something.
Now Vice President Cheney was formally the head of Halliburton, an oil drilling company, until he took over the vice presidency. The White House has acknowledged that Enron executives had met with Vice President Cheney five times to discuss President Bush's energy plan - Jack.
CAFFERTY: All right, thanks. Fred Katayama live for us this morning in Houston, Texas.
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