There was an important development in our lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney over the weekend.   We had a victory in our effort to conduct a deposition of Cheney's Chief of Staff, David Addington, which the Bush administration is trying desperately to prevent.

Yesterday District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a 26-page opinion denying the request of the vice president and the Office of the Vice President for a stay of her discovery order while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit considers their mandamus petition. 

Judge Kollar-Kotelly authorized CREW to take the depositions of David Addington and NARA official Nancy Smith to try to answer the question of whether the vice president truly is preserving all categories of records covered by the Presidential Records Act.  On the eve of the first deposition, the White House filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus in the D.C. Circuit.  By this form of extraordinary relief, the White House is asking the appellate court to order the district court to vacate the discovery order, which the White House claims will intrude into constitutionally-protected areas of the vice president. 

The district court refused to stay the discovery while the mandamus petition is pending, reasoning that the White House defendants have no likelihood of success on the merits of their petition.   Judge Kollar-Kotelly especially took issue with the factual representations made by the White House defendants in the D.C. Circuit, , noting that they “contain content that bears no resemblance to what has actually transpired in this case.”  Although she denied the stay, Judge Kollar-Kotelly suspended the depositions to give the Court of Appeals time to address the stay motion now before that court.