JUDGE'S RULING CLEARS WAY FOR ADDINGTON DEPOSITION

5 Oct 2008 // On Sunday, October 5, District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a memorandum opinion denying the defendants' motion for a stay of discovery in CREW, et al. v. Cheney, et al. pending the D.C. Circuit's ruling on defendants' petition for a writ of mandamus. By their mandamus request the White House defendants have asked the D.C. Circuit to order the district court to vacate its discovery order authoring CREW and the other plaintiffs to take the depositions of David Addington and NARA official Nancy Smith.In this lawsuit, plaintiffs are challenging the policies and guidelines of the Vice President's and the Archivist that define too narrowly those records that the vice president must preserve under the Presidential Records Act. Judge Kollar-Kotelly found defendants have no likelihood of success on the merits of their mandamus petition, which completely mischaracterizes the nature of the proceedings in the litigation and the bases for the court's ruling authorizing discovery. She also found harm to the plaintiffs and the public if this litigation does not proceed quickly, given the significant risk that the vice president is not preserving all records that the law requires. Although the judge denied the stay, she has suspended the depositions until the D.C. Circuit rules on the stay motion.