A cache of confidential documents made public on June 1, 2026, has revealed that the late Justice Antonin Scalia played a far more active behind-the-scenes role in bringing a high-profile case involving former Vice President Dick Cheney before the Supreme Court than the public ever knew — a disclosure that arrives seven months after Cheney’s death and casts fresh light on one of the most ethically controversial episodes in modern judicial history.
The documents, drawn from the private papers of the late Justice John Paul Stevens and reviewed by CNN in an explosive report, show that Scalia actively persuaded his colleagues to reverse course and agree to hear an appeal from Cheney in late 2003, at a time when the court was poised to reject it entirely. Within weeks of that decision, Scalia joined Cheney on a private duck hunting trip in Louisiana, igniting a firestorm over judicial ethics that would persist for years.
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. Cheney had survived five heart attacks over the course of his life and received a heart transplant in 2012.
Behind Closed Doors in 2001
The case at the heart of the controversy began in 2001, when 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.
What the newly released materials now confirm 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. 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.
A Divided Farewell
His death prompted an outpouring of tributes that captured the paradox of his public life. 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 JD Vance, who had not been invited.
The estrangement between Cheney and Trump had been years in the making — and it 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.
Renewed Scrutiny for the Court
The revelation arrives as the U.S. Supreme Court issues a series of landmark rulings in its final weeks of the 2025–2026 term, including a June 2026 decision striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The CNN report rekindles a debate that Supreme Court ethics reform advocates have long pointed to as a cautionary tale. The new Stevens documents suggest the Scalia-Cheney relationship was not merely a friendship that happened to overlap with a pending case — it was a friendship that actively shaped whether the case would be heard at all.
New York University ethics professor Stephen Gillers, a critic of Scalia at the time, told CNN the new documents 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. For a court that has faced renewed ethical scrutiny in recent years over undisclosed gifts and relationships between justices and wealthy benefactors, the revelation is a timely reminder that the tension between personal ties and judicial impartiality is not a new problem.
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. A Navigator Research survey published May 28, 2026 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.