Question--Did Team Bush ever turn over a whole shit load of e-mails?

[SunSeeker]

19. Seriously? Pull up a chair.

Not only did they refuse to disclose internal emails, but emails with outside private companies/individuals. On his 10th day as vice president, Dick Cheney established a secret “Energy Task Force,” formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), for the purpose of making recommendations to President Bush on energy policy. In formulating a new energy strategy for America, the task force met secretly with lobbyists and representatives of the petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industries. Many of these individuals work for energy companies which gave large campaign contributionsto Bush/Cheney 2000. Environmental groups were mostly excluded from the task force.

Members of Congress demanded Cheney release the names of individuals and corporations who gave information and advice to the task force. But the vice president refused. After pressure from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the independent auditing arm of Congress, Cheney did release limited information about the task force. The GAO issued a report on the information and found several corporations and associations, including Chevron Corp. and the National Mining Association, gave detailed energy policy recommendations for the task force.

According to the GAO’s report, “senior agency officials” with the Department of Energy met “numerous times” with energy companies to provide advice to Cheney’s energy task force. Those companies include Bechtel, Chevron, American Coal Company, Small Refiners Association, the Coal Council, CSX, Kerr-McGee, Nuclear Energy Institute, the National Mining Association, General Motors, the National Petroleum Council, and the energy lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers. In addition, the Secretary of Energy discussed national energy policy with chief executive officers of petroleum, electricity, nuclear, coal, chemical, and natural gas companies, among others. The task force even sought and received advice from the disgraced and bankrupt Enron Corporation.

The GAO did not know whether Halliburton was one of the companies involved in making recommendations to the energy task force. And Cheney refused to release all the documents which can prove or disprove Halliburton’s involvement.

Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in federal court to obtain the release of all of the task force records. The lawsuit argued that in 2001 Cheney violated the “open-government” law, known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, by meeting behind closed doors with energy industry executives, analysts and lobbyists. A federal appeals court ruled in July 2003 that Cheney must supply all the information requested in the lawsuit. But Cheney continued to stonewall the request. On December 15, 2003, the Supreme Court announced it will hear Cheney’s appeal of the case. Three weeks later, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent a weekend together duck hunting at a private resort in southern Louisiana, giving rise to calls for Scalia to recuse himself from Cheney’s appeal. What happened next was predictable.

Bush/Cheney got their way and denied public access to task force records that likely showed unprecedented corporate cronyism in the Bush administration, disproportionate influence over energy policy by Halliburton and other energy companies, and the true reasons for why the Bush administration demanded war with Iraq.

Here’s a link:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/05/11/court_backs_cheney_on_energy_meetings/

And that's just one example. For another example, see post 1 in this thread.

No, the National Archives do not have everything from Bush/Cheney. Not even close.