Cheney exempts self and staff from rules governing use of classified info same year that Scooter leaks Plame's identity

Oh, so Cheney is now his own branch of government AND he's not covered by those pesky rules that ensure that other Executive Branch offices doesn't misuse and abuse classified information. Anybody else see a connection to the Scooter Libby trial, and why Cheney wouldn't want rules governing the use of classified information to cover him and his staff?

From ABC:

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.

Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman....

For the first two years of the George W. Bush administration, Cheney's office complied with a presidential order that requires officials to report statistics on the number of documents it classifies and declassifies.

Since 2003, however, Cheney's office has refused to submit the data to ISOO. And when ISOO inspectors tried in 2004 to schedule a routine inspection of the vice president's offices, they were rebuffed, Waxman's letter claims.

Gee, 2003 is when Cheney stopped letting the inspectors in. It's also the same year that Scooter made his famous leak.