Matalin Details Cheney-Enron Meetings
NewsMax.com
Friday, Jan. 11, 2002 10:08 a.m. EST
Mary Matalin, senior adviser to both President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, described for the first time publicly Friday morning a series of meetings Cheney had with Enron officials before the energy giant collapsed last month.
Matalin also decried the media's efforts to draw parallels between Enron's collapse and ex-President Clinton's Whitewater scandal, telling talk radioman Don Imus, "They act like there's some billing records or some cattle scam or some fired travel aides or some blue dress."
But, complained the top White House aide, "There's no there there. ... They're trying to make a connection where none exists, because they're scandal addicts."
Matalin disputed claims that the administration had tried to hide its meetings with Enron executives, explaining, "Dick Cheney said in May on PBS that he had met with [Enron CEO] Ken Lay and had a 20-minute meeting with him."
"I remember that meeting very well," the senior White House adviser told Imus. "[Lay] got into the specifics of electricity competition and Cheney's not an expert on that and [Lay] was deferred to the staff. The subsequent meetings were not with the [Energy] Task Force or any Cabinet members - [it was] Enron staff guys with our staff guys."
One of the "so-called meetings," said Matalin, "was our head staff guy was giving a presentation to 25 companies and an Enron representative was there. Another so-called meeting was two guys came to talk to the staff about the progress of the energy report and the Enron guy never said anything.
"But in the interests of total, full disclosure on the narrow question that [ranking House Government Reform Committee Democrat Henry] Waxman [is asking] - who is, in this case, doing political bottom feeding, this is all that it's about - is 'Did you talk about any financial stuff?' And the answer in each and every case is N.O."
Matalin said Cheney himself had met with Mr. Lay only twice. "He met with him, as he said on PBS, once on April 17 for 20 minutes. And then in June, he and I and the chief of staff, Scooter Libby, ... went to an American Enterprise Institute world forum in Beaver Creek. It was one of these think tank things and there were 600 people there and Ken Lay was there.
"So we put that down as a meeting, which I think hardly qualifies," Matalin said. "I think we overdisclosed here."
The top Bush-Cheney adviser said contacts between Lay and Bush Cabinet officials Paul O'Neill and Don Evans were entirely justified.
"Enron is the world's largest energy trader," she reminded Imus. "Don't you think it would be remiss of the Treasury or the Commerce secretary to not take a call from the president of the largest energy trading company in the world?"
On the question of whether contacts between Enron and Bush officials in the end benefited the energy giant, Matalin noted that the Bush-Cheney energy plan contained 178 recommendations to improve U.S. energy production and "not one - nada, zip, zero - was in there for Enron or Ken Lay."
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