Thursday, May 14, 2009

AP: Pelosi Says CIA Lied, Misleads “All The Time”

The AP reports today on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s latest denial that she was told in fall 2002 the CIA had used enhanced interrogation techniques.

The AP begins:

Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in the method's use.

"To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

Pelosi said she subsequently learned that other lawmakers were told several months later by the CIA about the use of waterboarding.

"I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said. . . .

In a written response issued moments after Pelosi spoke, an official at the CIA neither disputed nor accepted the California Democrat's statements.

Instead, George Little, head of the CIA office of public affairs, said it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate. He said the notes could be made available at the CIA "for staff review." …
Little’s assurance that CIA briefing notes could be made available “for staff review” suggests the CIA’s confident its notes will support its claim Pelosi attended a briefing in fall 202 at which the CIA reported in detail on specific enhanced interrogation techniques it had used.

That would directly contradict Pelosi's previous claims the CIA only told her it might use the techniques in the future.

I think Pelosi believes the CIA’s briefing notes will support what the agency’s been saying; and that the notes will sooner rather than later become public. That IMO explains why she’s now attacking the CIA for what she says is lying and misleading Americans "all the time."

Again from the AP’s story:
Pelosi was particularly harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. And when a reporter asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.

She also suggested that the current Republican criticism marked an attempt to divert attention from the Bush administration's actions.

"They misrepresented every step of the way, and they don't want that focus on them, so they try to turn the attention on us," she said. …
The entire AP story’s here.

Folks, we’ve witnessed so much corruption and party-before-country partisanship from top Dems that I wouldn’t blame people for reacting to Pelosi’s attack on the CIA today with a “so what’s new?” shrug.

That shouldn’t happen.

When someone in Pelosi’s position – co-head of one of the three branches of our federal government and second in the presidential succession line – accuses the CIA of misleading us “all the time” and outright lying, it’s time to get to the bottom of things.

I’ll repeat what I said here about 10 days ago: Pelosi needs to step down temporarily from the speakership and testify publicly under oath as to what she's known about enhanced interrogation, how she learned it, and when.

Pelosi should testify in a setting in which she can be cross examined and in which others with knowledge of the CIA's briefings of members of Congress can also testify.

If we care about our country and its safety, we need to treat Pelosi’s charges today as a very serious matter and not dismiss them as just part of every day life in Washington.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once again, a national Democrat shows us she thinks we're all idiots. She is the Speaker of the House for God's sake. She's trying to say she's just a cog in the wheel with no authority and no power; that the CIA can lie and manipulate her and there's nothing she can do about it? That lying b**ch has no business representing anybody--even the leftwing nuts in San Francisco deserve better--if she is incapable of a) telling the truth, and b) understanding what the Speaker of the House is supposed to do. Of course she'll get away scot free because the MSM covers for her and nobody in the GOP has enough testosterone to go to the mat with this one. It really makes me want to hurl.
Tarheel Hawkeye

Anonymous said...

I watched the news report of Pelosi's press conference. All I could think of while I saw her speak was "liar, liar, pants on fire". She was very rattled by the questions from reporters and in fact had to refer to her notes (which she complained were out of order - she had several pages of them) and seemed only to get her foot stuck more firmly in her mouth - which, in my experience, is what happens to people who know that they are lying and are trying to spin a few more webs of lies to cover the ones that are not believed. To be honest, Pelosi looked like a litigant on the popular "Judge Judy" who Judge Judy has made a fool of because the claims made by the litigant exceeded the bounds of credulity. While I am sure that her aides when asked how her "performance" went assured her that she did a good job, anyone who watched the latest episode of "Nancy" would have seen an actress who not only couldn't remember her lines, she had never studied them to begin with.
cks

Anonymous said...

npelosi has been a LIAR for her entire career in politics. The shock is that she's finally been snared with her own lies. Will
the MSM acknowledge that they have been 'duped' for so long?
sigh --- DOUBT IT.

Anonymous said...

We need to get to the bottom of this. A sitting speaker of the house has accused a government agency charged with protecting this nation of lying to her in her official capacity. Someone, either the CIA or the Speaker of the House is lying and the American people deserve the truth. We need to demand to see every relevant document to find out who has lied.

Ken said...

Pelosi continues to lie. But as with John Edwards, there comes a point where even the lapdog media cannot continue to protect her. We will move to either the "move on" or the feeding frenzy phase next. It depends on whether the media believes she can be saved in spite of her performance.

I don't think they can save her.

Anonymous said...

The only visual missing from that press conference was Nancy's nose growing and growing and growing --- Steve in New Mexico

Anonymous said...

Pelosi's latest version of the "truth" is that when she said "lie" and "mislead" she was actually referring to President George W. Bush and certainly not her beloved CIA, whom she said she really respects for their courageous defense of our country, blah, blah, blah.
Sadly, there are some out there among the great unwashed who actually believe her. Hell, I think she believes herself--talk about delusional!
Tarheel Hawkeye