DENVER—Vice President Dick Cheney’s attorneys are opposing an attempt to force him to testify in a lawsuit in which a man claims he was arrested after telling Cheney that his policies in Iraq were “disgusting.”
The vice president is not a defendant in the lawsuit, but the attorney for the man suing five Secret Service agents said Cheney is the best eyewitness to what happened when the man approached him.
Steve Howards, 55, was questioned by Secret Service agents, arrested and told he would be charged with assault after making the comments to Cheney in the mountain resort of Beaver Creek in June 2006. Cheney was attending a conference there.
Howards was never charged with assault and the district attorney later dismissed a harassment charge against him.
Denver attorney David Lane filed a motion in federal court Thursday to have U.S. Marshals subpoena Cheney. Attorneys for the vice president fired back a motion Friday opposing the move.
James J. Gilligan, one of Cheney’s attorneys, did not immediately return a call after hours Friday.
Howards maintains he “lightly touched” Cheney after making his comment.
Howards, an environmental consultant, claims the Secret Service agents violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Lane has said Cheney has refused testify about what happened. A hearing on the request for the subpoena is scheduled Wednesday in federal court in Denver.
Lane also represented former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill who gained notoriety after comparing some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis. Churchill was later fired after a plagiarism investigation the he called fraudulent.
