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Excerpt:

White House Acknowledges More Contacts With Enron

By RICHARD A. OPPEL JR.
Published: May 23, 2002

White House officials had more extensive contacts with Enron executives in 2001 than previously disclosed, according to a document released by the Bush administration today in response to a request for information from a Senate committee.

The document describes contacts -- including meetings, phone conversations, letters and e-mail messages -- that concerned the national energy policy report produced by Vice President Dick Cheney, the California energy crisis, Enron's collapse last fall and appointments to administration posts, including the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The White House document also disclosed that Enron executives, including Kenneth L. Lay, the former chairman, attended numerous White House functions, including the 2001 inaugural, the Easter Egg roll, T-ball games, speeches and social events.

The release of the information came hours after a deeply divided Senate panel voted to issue two subpoenas to the White House for information about contacts with Enron, with Democrats accusing the White House of resisting earlier requests for information and Republicans suggesting that the move was politically motivated.

The White House document released today was prepared in response to an earlier request for information from the Governmental Affairs Committee, whose chairman is Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee. While it came after the subpoena was issued, it was not a legal response to it.

Aides to Mr. Lieberman said tonight that after a brief review of the document, the panel regards it as short of the information being sought. ''It appears the White House is still providing only what it thinks is relevant, rather than what the committee asked for,'' said Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the committee. ''We just don't know if the information is everything they collected, or just what they're willing to tell us. This would not have in any way averted a subpoena.''

Before the White House document was released, a spokeswoman said administration officials were ''rather perplexed'' that the panel had ''taken this highly unusual step to issue subpoenas without having reviewed'' the material.

The vote in the Governmental Affairs Committee this morning was 9 to 8 along party lines to issue the subpoenas. It came after more than an hour's debate that included a heated exchange between Mr. Lieberman and Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi.

The subpoenas were the first issued by Congress to the executive branch in the continuing inquiry into Enron's collapse and are likely to be resisted by the White House, which has often complained that Congress is encroaching on its executive power and constitutional prerogatives.