May 14th, 2009 • 2:53 pmPelosi Accuses CIA Of Lying to Her
In a stunning development, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused the CIA of lying to her and “misleading the Congress of the United States.” In fact, she’s practically dared the CIA to leak more information about the briefings. I suspect that’s gonna hurt her in the near future.
Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying to her during a 2002 briefing on the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” Pelosi said: “Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.”
She went on to call on the CIA to release the details of briefings they provided to Congress and for the creation of a truth commission to “determine how intelligence was misused and how controversial and possibly illegal activities like torture were authorized within the executive branch.”
Speaker Pelosi is using the CIA as a weapon to drag the Bush administration into this. Unfortunately for Ms. Pelosi, she’s made too many conflicting statements to be credible. She started off by saying she hadn’t been briefed, then switched her story to say that she’d been briefed that waterboarding was legal but it wasn’t being used before saying that Jane Harman was writing a letter expressing concerns with the legality of waterboarding to now saying that the CIA mislead her and Congress.
Ed nails it with this commentary:
More to the point, people who attended the same and similar briefings in that period have already acknowledged publicly that the CIA told them explicitly of their use. Some briefings included videotapes of the interrogations, which have been destroyed and created their own scandal on Capitol Hill and Langley.
It isn’t difficult to not trust Ms. Pelosi at this point. Her statements have been proven false from so many different directions that it’s impossible to keep track of all the ways.
Rather than go through all the different melodramas created by Ms. Pelosi’s varying stories, I’ll just simplify it to this: Speaker Pelosi was caught lying. Instead of admitting she lied, she concocted more lies which have gotten her into deeper trouble.
In short, Ms. Pelosi hasn’t figured out that the first rule of holes is to stop digging.
Let the leak wars begin.
Technorati: Intel, EITs, Nancy Pelosi, Waterboarding, Torture, Democrats, CIA, Leaks, President Bush, Interrogations
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Entries RSS2 Feed
[...] Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog [...]
Pingback by California Conservative » Blog Archive » Pelosi Accuses CIA Of Lying to Her • 14May2009 @ 2:57 pm
Obama really kicked an ant hill with his ill-advised and politically motivated release of Bush Administration memos regarding EITs- I’m sure he already regrets it.
So, let’s have a hearing and get it all out there, shall we? Then watch the rats scatter who attacked Bush for protecting the country from terrorist attack… but who clearly knew what was going on five years before we heard a peep out of them
Comment by Reaganite Republican Resistance • 14May2009 @ 5:10 pm
I’ve heard news stories some democrat lawmaker asked was this tough enough. Was that Pelosi?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment by Walter Hanson • 14May2009 @ 6:20 pm
With Pelosi being from California, they could have said waterboarding and she was thinking nostalgically of surfboarding, a slight mental lapse because back in her youth they made them out of wood, the boards, and she recalled that she had friends who owned a woody for transporting their waterboards to the beach. She might have envisioned no problem letting detainees and interrogators do some boarding together if the surf’s up with no treacherous undertow.
Seriously, Gary, I think what she indicated she wanted was actual footage and transcripts; and if they have none it comes down to a swearing contest of he said, she said, and that can be as hard to pin down as Norm Coleman’s dealings with Nasser Kazeminy.
Comment by eric z • 15May2009 @ 10:10 am
Gary, the question really is - it was done, and should it have been?
All else, including what Pelosi knew when, is outside of the basic question - who authorized it, who ordered it be done. If she gets thrown under a bus over it, it would be deserved if she in fact was complicit. Torture is torture regardless of what Pelosi knew when.
You and Rove,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124226863721018193.html
are simply dabbling in misdirection from the core issue.
Moreover, neither you nor Rover are saying Pelosi ORDERED it, are you?
SO — Who was behind it being done apparently multiple times daily to certain detainees?
Who gave the orders?
Pin that down first and later worry about who knew what when, etc.
And as to who knew and did what when — If McChrystal was big in that chain of command, I suggest you should quite properly be questioning Obama’s support for putting him in charge in Afghanistan.
The McChrystal appointment needs scrutiny - beyond the Tillman family’s questioning. What was JSOC doing under McChrystal when, and who gave McChrystal his marching orders, then, at that time, telling him to do what, and leaving what else to his discretionary command.
Ask the right questions, don’t misdirect attention.
Comment by eric z • 15May2009 @ 10:39 am
The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. In fact, I’d argue that the Constitution mandates it when it gives the commander-in-chief the affirmative responsibility of protecting the United State from all enemies.
Several CIA directors testified that EITs prevented several terrorist attacks, including an attack on the tallest building in LA, the collapse of an important bridge in New York City & the capture of the Lackawanna Six terror cell. These DCI’s also testified that ‘conventional methods’ weren’t working so they asked for a DoJ ruling on whether EITs could be employed.
Pelosi’s lies have nothing to do with the issue of EITs. Ms. Pelosi started this by criticizing EITs. Then-Rep. Porter Goss told the media that he & Pelosi were briefed together & that they asked whether they were doing enough.
The media properly asked Ms. Pelosi about it & she started changing her story on a seemingly daily basis.
The ‘distraction’ as you call it started with Ms. Pelosi telling a series of conflicting stories.
It isn’t my fault or Mr. Rove’s if Ms. Pelosi can’t tell the truth.
Comment by Gary Gross • 15May2009 @ 10:58 am
We disagree, and the JAG corps lawyers reportedly briefing the Camp Nama - Task Force 121 special ops people
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0806TERROR_102?click=main_sr
and the Bush Whitehouse lawyers splitting hairs over the Geneva Accords was obscene obfuscation over the civilized world not condoning torture and uncivilized elements within and outside of it using torture nonetheless.
On Pelosi, besides the Rove link, helpful links suggesting she perhaps approvingly knew but in no event did she think, back then, to do the simple write-a-secret-letter CYA step as Harman promptly on taking over the senior Dem seat on the House Intell. Committee did.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/12/pelosi.waterboarding/
http://womensissues.about.com/b/2009/05/15/could-prior-knowledge-of-waterboarding-be-nancy-pelosis-waterloo.htm
http://womensissues.about.com/b/2007/12/09/cruel-and-unusual-pelosi-nancy-knew-about-waterboarding-since-2002.htm#gB3
http://civilliberty.about.com/b/2009/05/14/nancy-pelosi-torture-and-culpability.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid=topnews&sub=AR
So whether she splits hairs and rewrites history somewhat, she appears to have been told enough to then have registered some official negative response had she then so intended.
And there was Porter Goss and the Goslings when he got to the CIA destroying the interrogation tapes, a separate story you do not explicitly mention, condemn, or condone.
If they saw nothing wrong, why screw with the evidence on record???
You appear to take the Cheney-Limbaugh position, rather than the McCain-Paul position over these things - Paul does not see any Constitutional torture imperative; or do you assert he does?
The MSNBC crowd last night argued that it all traces back to Cheney, and wanting to manufacture the nonexistent tie between al Quaida and Saddam; and if Cambone’s been out of that loop it would truly surprise me immensely. Thus they argued that getting reliable information via such means was not the objective, but expediently getting politically useful false statements was. Any thoughts?
Comment by eric z • 15May2009 @ 11:40 am
1) There was a tenuous link between Osama & Saddam, which Stephen Hayes documents in his book, but nobody has suggested that Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks.
2) I haven’t read enough on the interrogation tapes to know much about it.
3) Ron Paul is mistaken in his beliefs & McCain’s position is understandable & wrong. The Constitution gives the commander-in-chief the affirmative responsibility of protecting our nation from its enemies. That means, in a very literal sense, that it’s imperative that the commander-in-chief use everything in his/her power to protect the United States from its enemies.
I’d further argue that there’s a moral imperative that they protect thousands from attacks. Imagine having the tallest building in LA toppled during the busiest time of the day. Imagine, instead, that the busiest bridge in NYC being destroyed.
EITs prevented those things from happening & yes, we know that the regular interrogation techniques didn’t work. We know this because former CIA directors testified to that under oath.
Comment by Gary Gross • 15May2009 @ 4:27 pm