Cheney aide picked for case deposition

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VICE PRESIDENT

Cheney aide picked for case deposition

A group suing Vice President Dick Cheney to preserve a wide range of records from his time in office can depose one of his top aides, federal courts ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Claire O'Donnell, the vice president's deputy chief of staff, to make herself available to lawyers from a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW. CREW is suing Mr. Cheney and the Executive Office of the President in an effort to ensure that no presidential records are destroyed or handled in a way that makes them unavailable to the public.

The group had wanted to depose Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, but a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said deposing Mr. Addington "would constitute an 'unwarranted impairment' of the functioning of" the vice president's office.

Appellate Judges Douglas H. Ginsburg, David S. Tatel and Thomas B. Griffith ordered that another aide be substituted, but they refused to throw out Judge Kollar-Kotelly's order requiring the deposition. Mr. Cheney's lawyers contended the depositions were an unprecedented intrusion into the vice president's prerogatives, but the appellate judges said the deposition would "cause little to no inconvenience."

SENATE

Stevens juror told to explain absence

A federal judge Friday ordered a juror who vanished during Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial back to court to explain her disappearance.

The woman identified as Juror No. 4 left the jury deliberating the charges against Stevens a week ago to fly to California after her father's death. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan halted the deliberations to wait for her, but court officials say she never responded when they tried to contact her to determine when she was returning to Washington.

prevents Obama from winning 55 percent of the vote or more