For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his offices handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice presidents office suggested abolishing the oversight unit, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman.
The Information Security Oversight Office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, disclosed Mr. Cheneys effort to shut down the oversight office. Mr. Waxman, who has had a leading role in the stepped-up efforts by Democrats to investigate the Bush administration, outlined the matter in an eight-page letter sent Thursday to the vice president and posted, along with other documentation, on the committees Web site.
Officials at the National Archives and the Justice Department confirmed the basic chronology of events cited in Mr. Waxmans letter.
The letter said that after repeatedly refusing to comply with a routine annual request from the archives for data on his staffs classification of internal documents, the vice presidents office in 2004 blocked an on-site inspection of records that other agencies of the executive branch regularly go through.
But the National Archives is an executive branch department headed by a presidential appointee, and it is assigned to collect the data on classified documents under a presidential executive order. Its Information Security Oversight Office is the archives division that oversees classification and declassification.
I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy, Mr. Waxman said in an interview. But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that hes not part of the executive branch, so he doesnt have to comply.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, Megan McGinn, said, Were confident that were conducting the office properly under the law. She declined to elaborate.
Other officials familiar with Mr. Cheneys view said that he and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, did not believe that the executive order applied to the vice presidents office because it had a legislative as well as an executive status in the Constitution. Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, routinely comply with the oversight requirements, according to Mr. Waxmans office and outside experts.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said last night, The White House complies with the executive order, including the National Security Council.
The dispute is far from the first to pit Mr. Cheney and Mr. Addington against outsiders seeking information, usually members of Congress or advocacy groups. Their position is generally based on strong assertions of presidential power and the importance of confidentiality, which Mr. Cheney has often argued was eroded by post-Watergate laws and the prying press.
Mr. Waxman asserted in his letter and the interview that Mr. Cheneys office should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously because it has had problems protecting secrets.
