In what has become an important trial of strength between the legislature and the presidency, Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO) yesterday announced that it will take the White House to court over Vice-President Dick Cheney's refusal to name his contacts with the bankrupt energy company Enron.
The GAO move reflects the growing political implications of the Enron crisis. It comes after months of demands that Mr Cheney give details of the people his task force on energy consulted in six meetings with the company and those he met in other energy companies.
Mr Cheney is strongly backed by the President, who says disclosure would rob the White House of the ability to confer in private and represents one curtailment too many of presidential privilege which has been eroded since Watergate and Vietnam.
The White House promises to contest the case vigorously. The Comptroller General, Mr David Walker, the head of the GAO, said earlier this week that if he went ahead and filed a lawsuit, it would be the first time in history that the GAO had taken a federal entity or official to court. Other such conflicts have always been resolved outside the courtroom.
