Scalia Flew as Cheney’s Guest to Hunting Trip

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.

The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney’s upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the court agreed to take up Cheney’s bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.

According to those who met them at the small airstrip here, the justice and the vice president flew from Washington on Jan. 5 and were accompanied by a second, backup Air Force jet that carried staff and security aides to the vice president.

Two military Black Hawk helicopters were brought in and hovered nearby as Cheney and Scalia were whisked away in a heavily guarded motorcade en route to a secluded, private hunting camp owned by an oil industry businessman.

The Los Angeles Times previously reported that the two men hunted ducks together while the case was pending, but it wasn’t clear then that they had traveled together or that Scalia had accompanied Cheney on Air Force Two.

The couple was seen holding hands and sharing a sleeping bag. mjh

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