Bush meets with his employers

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

[NYT]
June 21, 2001
Business Leaders Visit Bush at White House
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, June 20 - As the White House defended several recent
private meetings with corporate executives who have important issues
before the government, scores of other executives from the Business
Roundtable came to see President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and
other top officials today.

The executives were treated to lengthy private briefings this
afternoon by Mr. Cheney on energy, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
on foreign policy and the trade representative, Robert B. Zoellick, on
his efforts to start a new round of global trade talks, a step many of
the companies represented in the room have long urged.

The executives included many of Mr. Bush's large contributors, but
several Democrats, including Franklin D. Raines, who ran the Office of
Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, were there as
well. Mr. Bush asked the executives to lobby for trade promotion
authority, once known as fast track, which limits Congress's ability
to amend trade pacts once they are negotiated.

Today's session was one of the larger meetings of corporate leaders at
the White House. But it occurred while Mr. Bush's aides were still
addressing questions about private meetings between business
executives and top White House officials.

Those questions were amplified today after The Wall Street Journal
disclosed that Mr. Cheney met privately on Tuesday with Steven A.
Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft. The White House said the
two men did not discuss the decision expected shortly by the federal
appeals court in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft,
which the company hopes to settle, but talked instead about education,
trade and tax policy.

Three months ago another top official, Karl Rove, met with Intel
executives when Mr. Rove held more than $100,000 in stock in the
company, which makes computer chips, was seeking government approval
of the sale of one of its most important equipment suppliers to a
Dutch company.

The White House has said that Mr. Rove referred the Intel executive,
Craig Barrett, to the National Economic Council, which was handling
the issue. The same day, Mr. Barrett also met with Mr. Cheney and
raised the issue, but Mr. Cheney appeared unfamiliar with it, Intel
officials have said.

Democrats and environmentalists have also complained that the White
House sought advice from energy industry executives in the formulation
of its energy policy this spring.

Kenneth L. Lay, the chief executive of Enron and a longtime friend and
supporter of the Bush family, has had considerable access to the White
House, although officials deny that he lobbied the president or vice
president on the energy proposal.

Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, said there was nothing
inappropriate about private meetings between White House officials and
corporate executives with business before the government.

"There is hardly a citizen who is not seeking something from the
government, and that's a formula for saying the government shall never
meet with anybody," Mr. Fleischer said today at his daily news
briefing. "There are many organizations that come to Washington for
the sole purpose of lobbying members of Congress or lobbying the
administration on an education issue, for example. It is entirely
appropriate for the administration to listen - to hear them, just as
it's entirely appropriate for the administration to listen to
steelworkers who want to come to Washington, or to listen to business
leaders who want to come to Washington."

But Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, today
renewed his request for more information about the Intel meeting with
Mr. Rove and similar meetings that he might have held with other
executives. Mr. Waxman also said he wanted to know more about which
organizations and companies had met with the White House to help
formulate its energy policy.

"I can't understand why the White House simply won't answer the
questions about the role Mr. Rove played in some of these decisions,"
Mr. Waxman said in an interview. "The biggest concern I have right now
is they are keeping it secret. Their energy task force met in secret."

Mr. Waxman disputed the contention of some White House officials and
Republicans that he was simply repaying the new administration for the
aggressive investigations of the Clinton administration.

"I can understand why they would be worried about payback given the
way the Republicans acted during the Clinton years," Mr. Waxman said.
"But that's not the way I think we ought to behave. I haven't called
for an investigation or a hearing. I'm simply seeking information."

Mr. Bush and his top advisers met this afternoon with scores of chief
executives from the Business Roundtable. They included Philip M.
Condit of Boeing; Scott G. McNealy of Sun Microsystems; Lewis Campbell
of Textron; Kenneth Chenault of American Express; Raymond Gilmartin of
Merck; Maurice Greenberg of American International Group; William
Harrison of J. P. Morgan Chase; Leo Mullin of Delta Air Lines; David
O'Reilly of Chevron; Frederick Smith of Fedex; Sidney Taurel of Eli
Lilly, and G. Richard Wagoner of General Motors.