May 16, 2002
The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Judge Gonzales:
I have received your letter dated today
concerning the Committee’s March 27, 2002, request for
information about certain communications Executive Office of the
President (EOP) officers or staff had with or relating to Enron
Corporation. Because your letter fails to give the Committee a
commitment to provide all information requested in the March 27
letter, I have concluded that I have no choice but to seek
authorization to issue a subpoena to the EOP at the Committee’s
May 22 Business Meeting.
As you know, the Committee sent the EOP an
information request on March 27, 2002, as part of its inquiry
into the federal government’s oversight of and interactions with
Enron. That letter sought information about only three
categories of communications – the bulk of which involved
contacts with Enron – and the information the Committee sought
with respect to those categories was not particularly
expansive. As noted previously, this request was narrower than
those sent to a number of other federal agencies – for example,
the SEC, CFTC, FERC and the Labor Department – each of which was
asked to provide many more categories of information and each
of which was asked to recall events dating back a decade. Each
of those agencies provided the Committee with detailed responses
within three or four weeks of the Committee ’s request.
In contrast, more than seven weeks have passed
since the Committee’s request to the EOP, and the Committee has
received virtually no information from you. Indeed, the only
material you have sent us is copies of letters responding to
other Congressional inquiries and a transcript of a Presidential
press conference. These documents are inadequate on their face
even as a partial response to the Committee’s request. The
letter from the Vice President’s Counsel, for example, appears
to address only meetings, not all communications, and even with
respect to the events it discusses, fails to provide the few
details sought in the Committee’s March 27 letter (such as the
identity of all who attended the meetings). Just as
importantly, you do not indicate whether these documents purport
to reflect the totality of responsive communications in which
the President or Vice President were involved or whether you are
even taking steps to determine whether that is the case.
At the same time, you have not disavowed your
repeated refusal to acknowledge that the Committee may
rightfully ask for much of the information sought in its March
27 request and consequently have left unclear whether you intend
to provide us with significant portions of the information
requested. You previously told the Committee, for example, that
you find the Committee’s request for information about Enron-EOP
communications regarding the National Energy Policy "removed
from the Committee’s legitimate inquiry," and that you believe
that the efforts to obtain information about Enron-EOP
communications regarding appointments "intrude deeply into the
President’s core constitutional responsibilities." You have
informed me that your internal search for information "may
elicit information" on these topics, but you still have declined
to assure the Committee that, absent a specific and
particularized claim of privilege, you will provide the
Committee with all responsive information uncovered in your
search.
You also have failed to provide the Committee
with any assurance that your search will be reasonably
calculated to produce all responsive information. As the
Committee’s May 3, 2002, letter explains – and as I reiterated
in our May 16 meeting – sending a survey of the sort you have
composed to a limited number of EOP personnel does not seem
calculated to produce information about all communications
covered by the Committee’s March 27 request. You mention in
your letter that you "would be pleased to inquire of additional
appropriate personnel suggested by the Committee." I appreciate
that offer, but I have already taken you up on it; as I
explained at our May 16 meeting, all EOP personnel should be
asked whether they have information responsive to the
Committee’s request. Moreover, they should be asked not just
whether they themselves had such communications, but whether
they have information about any such communications. It is hard
to see how sending out an e-mail or memo to all EOP personnel
with a request of this sort is burdensome in any manner.
I have not ignored the fact that your May 16
letter states that you "should be able to provide relevant
information to the Committee" at some point in May. However, in
light of our previous correspondence, our meeting last week and
your letter’s failure to address the issues outlined above, I
must assume that you do not intend "relevant information" to
mean "all responsive information."
In short, your most recent communication has
forced me to conclude that – despite the Committee’s extensive
efforts to resolve these issues with you and our extreme
patience in waiting almost two months before demanding a
response – the Committee cannot reasonably expect to receive the
information sought in its March 27 request at any time in the
near future. Having reached that conclusion, I regret that I
have no choice but to seek authority from the Committee to issue
a subpoena to the EOP at our next business meeting, which is
scheduled for next Wednesday, May 22. I will ask the Committee
to hold that agenda item in abeyance only if you can provide the
Committee with assurances that (1) you will promptly take steps
to broaden the search along the lines discussed above and in the
Committee’s May 3 letter in order to obtain all information
sought in the Committee’s March 27 letter, and (2) you will
provide the Committee all information sought in the Committee’s
March 27 letter by the end of May.
Sincerely,
Joseph I. Lieberman
Chairman