President Bush amended an existing executive order regarding classified information in 2003 to address post-Sept. 11 concerns that sensitive data were being mishandled.
Cheney's staff filed annual reports with the National Archives in 2001 and 2002, as required of all federal agencies that handle national security matters. But it hasn't filed any of the reports since 2003, when Bush's order established a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified national security information to ensure it is not accidentally released or leaked for political gain.
Waxman and others criticized Cheney and his staff, saying their refusal to comply with the presidential order could endanger national security.
"To my knowledge, this was the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the Information Security Oversight Office that a request for access to conduct a security inspection was denied by a White House office," Waxman wrote to Cheney.
What's more, the congressman said, it suggests that the vice president considers himself above the law -- even when the directive in question was created by his own boss, Bush.
"This is a very dangerous position he is taking and a ridiculous one, but it is a quite serious one," Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in an interview.
"I don't know if he is covering something up or not, but ... when somebody refuses to make this information available, you wonder what they don't want the inspectors from the National Archives to know."
A frequent critic of the Bush administration, Waxman also asked Cheney how the vice president's office could claim, as it has in correspondence he cited in his letter, that it was not "an entity within the executive branch."
One Cheney staffer familiar with the matter said Thursday that the vice president has not complied with the order because his office has dual functions: It is part of the executive branch -- the Bush administration -- but also part of the legislative branch, given Cheney's position as president of the Senate.
As such, the vice president's office has no legal obligation to abide by the order because it only applies to the executive branch, said the Cheney staffer, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the inner workings of the office and requested anonymity.
Cheney's position is articulated in the 2004 edition of an annual government directory of senior officials known as the Plum Book:
