Trent Lott: “Northwest Airlines, one of the defendants in a civil antitrust action brought by the Department of Justice on behalf of…”

“Northwest Airlines, one of the defendants in a civil antitrust action brought by the Department of Justice on behalf of the United States in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, has subpoenaed the General Accounting Office to produce documents that GAO collected or generated in the course of its preparation of testimony or reports for several Senate committees, including the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition. GAO advised Northwest's counsel that the documents sought were unavailable because they are protected by both the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which is Congress's legislative privilege, and GAO's own deliberative process privilege. Northwest Airlines has chosen to contest GAO's assertion of privilege by moving in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel GAO to produce the documents. The records that Northwest Airlines is seeking were records that GAO, which is an investigative agency of Congress, collected or created while preparing testimony or reports in response to requests from committees and subcommittees of the Senate.”