A set of confidential documents from the private papers of the late Justice John Paul Stevens has revealed that Justice Antonin Scalia secretly lobbied his Supreme Court colleagues to take up the Dick Cheney energy task force case in late 2003, then went on a duck hunting trip with the vice president just three weeks later. CNN published the findings on June 1, 2026, seven months after Cheney’s death and amid a Supreme Court term marked by major rulings including a decision that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
The disclosure reopens one of the most ethically contentious episodes in modern Supreme Court history, offering new evidence that Scalia’s role in the case extended far beyond what was publicly known and began well before the infamous Louisiana hunting trip that sparked calls for his recusal.
The Ethics Question Lives On
Stephen Gillers, a New York University ethics professor who criticized Scalia at the time, told CNN that the newly released materials deepened his concerns. “The more influential he is on behalf of Cheney’s interests, given Cheney’s governmental and personal interests in the case, and Scalia’s friendship, and the timing of the trip, it makes the Scalia activity behind the scenes all the more reprehensible,” Gillers said.
The revelations come at a moment when the Supreme Court faces renewed ethical scrutiny over undisclosed gifts and relationships between justices and wealthy benefactors. A Navigator Research survey found that 74% of Americans support term limits for Supreme Court justices, and 70% back congressional investigations into potential ethics violations — both with bipartisan support.
What the Stevens documents reveal is that Scalia’s role began not after the court agreed to hear the case, but before — making his subsequent duck hunting trip with Cheney all the more ethically fraught in retrospect.
A Legacy Revisited
Richard B. Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States, died on November 3, 2025, at the age of 84, surrounded by his family at home. His family confirmed the cause as complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease — a fitting if sobering end for a man who had survived five heart attacks over the course of his life and received a heart transplant in 2012.
Former President George W. Bush, for whom Cheney served two terms beginning in 2001, called the loss “a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends,” describing Cheney as “among the finest public servants of his generation — a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held.” Bush delivered a eulogy at the state funeral held at Washington National Cathedral on November 20, 2025, where former President Joe Biden and other living vice presidents gathered in tribute. Notably absent were President Donald Trump and Vice President Vance.
The estrangement between Cheney and Donald Trump had been years in the making and ended with one of the most stunning crossover endorsements in modern American political history. In October 2024, Cheney publicly endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president, declaring that Donald Trump posed a threat to the Constitution and the rule of law.
A Case Built on Secrecy
In 2001, then-Vice President Dick Cheney chaired the National Energy Policy Development Group, a White House task force whose meetings with energy industry lobbyists became the subject of intense public and legal scrutiny. The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch sued to compel the release of records revealing who participated in those closed-door sessions. Cheney and the Bush administration fought back, arguing the case violated the constitutional separation of powers.
According to the newly released materials reviewed by CNN — drawn from the private papers of the late Justice John Paul Stevens — the Supreme Court was poised to reject the appeal entirely in late 2003. Justice Scalia then intervened behind the scenes, actively persuading his colleagues to reverse course and agree to hear Cheney’s appeal, in moves that were concealed from the public at the time.
Within three weeks of the court announcing it would take the case, Scalia accompanied Cheney on a private duck hunting trip in Louisiana, touching off one of the most enduring controversies over judicial ethics in recent memory. The Sierra Club formally requested Scalia’s recusal, arguing his impartiality had been irreparably compromised. Scalia refused in a defiant 21-page memorandum, insisting the two men had never discussed the case and were never alone together during the trip.
The court ultimately ruled largely in Cheney’s favor in June 2004, allowing the administration to keep the task force’s internal deliberations secret.
Dick Cheney is gone, and Antonin Scalia died in 2016. But the questions raised by their once-private relationship — and the decisions it may have influenced — continue to echo through an institution whose legitimacy depends on the public’s belief that its doors are not opened by friendship.
