Snort-Worthy: Pelosi Admits She Receives CIA Briefings, Won't Say If They're Still Lying

Let's keep the pressure on Captain Planet's accusations against the CIA:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at her weekly press conference yesterday continued dodging questions about her accusations that the CIA lied to Congress about waterboarding terrorist detainees.

Pelosi was pressed by reporters on whether she continued to receive briefings and admitted that she is still receiving the CIA presentatoins.  She refused to answer when this humble correspondent asked whether or not she believes intelligence professionals are still lying to her.

This liberal blowhard still won't give any proof to her allegations against the CIA that they lied to her about waterboarding. She has just buried her head in the sand especially after Leon Panetta all but called her a liar.

For the most part the mainstream media is letting her get away with it, but it does seem to be the story that won't go away. I hope the GOP and the press keep pressing her to show proof or admit she lied until she does it. She should not get away with this egrgious lie.

Pelosi Buries Head in Sand: "I Stand By" CIA Blame Game, Stop Asking Me About It

Apparently, Madame Speaker isn't backing down while refusing to prove her accusations about the CIA:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she stood by her statement last week in which she accused the CIA of lying to Congress about Bush-era interrogation methods, but then refused to make any more remarks on the topic.

In her first public comments since her accusation last week, Pelosi attempted to tamp down a story that she fueled and now Republicans say she either has to prove or apologize for."

I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this. I don't have any more to say on this," she said at her weekly news conference. "I stand by my comments. And what we are doing is staying on our course and not being distracted from it."

She made this statement whil hiding behind a
"human shield" of her Democratic collegues. To their credit, the "press wouldn't let her" get away with hiding behind her fellow Democrats:

When reporters tried to ask Pelosi about all that has happened since her accusation of the CIA last week - the calls by Republicans for her to resign, and the strong defense of the intelligence community by CIA Director Leon Panetta - Hoyer at first tried to step forward and answer for her.

But reporters asked for Pelosi to respond.

The only response to questions that Pelosi gave, if she would give one at all, would be bring up jobs, healthcare, and other topics that had nothing to do with the elephant in the room.

She may try to hide her head in the sand and hope and pray that this goes away, but Republicans aren't letting Pelosi off so easily.

But Republicans aren't letting this one slide.

The GOP has seized on her accusation that the CIA misled Congress, contending that the California Democrat's remarks have demoralized the intelligence community. House Republicans on Thursday demanded that a bipartisan panel investigate her allegations.

"To have this charge out there and not have it resolved I think is damaging to our intelligence efforts, and certainly will have a chilling effect on our intelligence professionals around the world," House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

While the proposition to have the panel investigation failed in the House, Republicans aren't going to stop there. The only response that Pelosi gave, if she gave one at all, would be bring up jobs, healthcare, and other topics that had nothing to do with the elephant in the room:

There was one shout out from a reporter as Pelosi left the room asking for comment on Rep. Steve King’s personal resolution asking for a suspension of Pelosi’s security clearance.

Pelosi winced but did not answer the question.

On Thursday evening during Special Order speeches, Congressman Steve King (R-Ia) read into the Congressional record a privileged resolution calling for the suspension of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s security clearance stating that if Pelosi’s situation is not resolved by the time the House reconvenes after the Memorial Day district work period, King intends to introduce the resolution.

“The relationship between Members of Congress and the intelligence community cannot be jeopardized because of the Speaker of the House leveling allegations of lying to Congress against our intelligence officials,” King said. “Speaker Pelosi has accused the CIA of committing a federal crime -- lying to Congress. The CIA and other American defense and intelligence agencies cannot trust Nancy Pelosi with our national secrets, let alone our national security, until this matter is resolved. If true, there has been a serious violation of federal law. If false, American national security requires a new Speaker of the House. The severity of Speaker Pelosi’s accusations leaves no middle ground, and her security clearance should be suspended pending investigation.

“If the Speaker is unable or unwilling to provide evidence to support her allegation, that she and Congress have been lied to by the CIA, the American people will be left with no choice but to conclude that she made this allegation for political purposes,” King concluded. “Until her allegations are proven, she should not receive sensitive or classified information pertaining to the national security interests of the United States.”

In-Fighting Starts Early in Obama Administration: Pelosi: CIA Lied, Leon Panetta: No, We Didn't

A firestorm of controversy has surrounded Nancy Pelosi about what she knew and when she knew about the use of water boarding. She has sudden outrage over the practice that many say she knew of years ago and said nothing about her disapproval.

Now, she said that when she was supposedly briefed about the subject the CIA lied to her and to the rest of Congress:

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 its 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.

Huh?

She was the head of the Intelligence Committee in 2002. She had to have been briefed. She wouldn't have been briefed that someone else was briefed.

But Pelosi defended her own lack of action on the issue, saying her focus at the time was on wresting congressional control from Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job—the Congress part," Pelosi said.

While it is true that no single letter could have changed the policy, she didn't have to stop at just one letter if she really cared as much as she says she does. She could've shouted it from the mountaintops, but she didn't say one word for years.

In response to her excuse of her only job being helping Democrats get elected, don't you think that if she would've blown the whistle about waterboarding in 2002-3 when she was told about the enhanced interrogation techniques, it would have possibly helped John Kerry and other Democrats get elected, assuming voters were actually on her side? If it was that egregious she should have talked about it back then in either role
she carried.

This is what Leon Panetta had to confute:

Pelosi was particularly harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said.

And when a reporter asked whether the agency lied, she did not disagree.

Here is his rebuttal:

CIA Director Leon Panetta challenged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accusations that the agency lied to her, writing a memo to his agents saying she received nothing but the truth.

Panetta said that "ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened."

So, he pretty much called Pelosi a liar. Leon went on in his agency-wide CIA memo:

Panetta, President Obama's pick to run the clandestine agency and President Clinton's former chief of staff, wrote in a memo to CIA employees Friday that "CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing 'the enhanced techniques that had been employed,'" according to CIA records.

"We are an agency of high integrity, professionalism and dedication," Panetta said in the memo. "Our task is to tell it like it is — even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it."

In the pep talk-style memo titled "Turning Down the Volume," Panetta encourages CIA employees to return to their normal business and not to be distracted by the shout-fest Pelosi's remarks created."

My advice — indeed, my direction — to you is straightforward: Ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission," Panetta wrote. "We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country."

This whole thing has blown up to now include calls for her resignation and plenty of heat from the left and right. Maybe, Nancy can keep her foot out of her mouth long enough to have this blow over, but it seems to have possibly a life of its own. It could end up costing her chairmanship or even her seat in the House next year.

Pelosi: I Never Knew About Waterboarding In 2002, Former CIA Director: Yes, You Did

There is a classic case of he said/she said in Washington. Pelosi swears that she never knew that terrorists were being waterboarded:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she was never told during a congressional briefing in 2002 that waterboarding or other "enhanced" interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects.

However, there has been some suspicion that she might have been less than truthful in that statement:

But in a story published in the Washington Post in December 2007, two officials were quoted saying that the California Democrat and three other lawmakers had received an hour-long secret briefing on the interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, and that they raised no objections at the time.

The clash of accounts has stirred Republican claims that Democrats have selective and politically motivated amnesia when it comes to who knew what, and when, about the Bush-era interrogation programs.

Yesterday, Porter J. Goss, one of the four lawmakers in the previously mentioned secret briefing and former CIA director, definitely blew her story out of the water, even though he never mentioned Pelosi by name:

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

What Goss leaves out is that the Dear Speaker was the ranking Democratic member on the House intel committee in 2002. As the ranking Democratic leader, she would have been told of such techniques in this briefing.

Goss goes on:

-- We understood what the CIA was doing.

-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

So, not only did Pelosi lie and say that she didn't know when she did, but she apparently didn't have any problem with it.