The House Rejects Request for Pelosi/CIA Probe
I really wouldn’t have expected anything less from the liberal House. This is probably the most progressive House we have had in a long time and it unfortunately gives Pelosi a lot of leeway to get away with impeachable offenses like throwing an entire intelligence agency under the bus and accusing them of lying.
House Republican Leader John Boehner on Thursday demanded that a bipartisan congressional panel investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used against a terrorism suspect.
“We have no choice,” Boehner told reporters, arguing that Pelosi’s remarks were having a chilling effect on the intelligence community.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced a resolution on Boehner’s behalf calling for the probe.
Even though Democrats want to argue that this is a partisan investigation, what would they call their little truth commission of the Bush administration? I also would like to know, as an independent thinker, who is telling the truth here, the CIA or Nancy Pelosi? I think it’s important for the American public to get the facts, but the House voted against the probeand stated that Nancy Pelosi already requested the declassification of her notes/files which would corroborate her claims.
House Democrats have defeated a Republican push to investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used against terrorism suspects.
The House voted 252-172 to block the measure that would have created a bipartisan congressional panel.
If Nancy really did request that information, will she publish her request that she sent to the CIA like Dick Cheney did? Remember how the media and the leftist bloggers questioned Cheney’s honesty when he said he made a request to the CIA?
Hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites – how many times can it be said – it’s getting really old and tiresome.
Awww Shucks… Nancy Pelosi Hides and Declines Sunday Morning Circuit
You don’t think there could be a reason she is hiding do you? Could it be that she doesn’t want to be trapped in yet another lie or contradictions from previous recollections of her CIA briefings?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned down invitations to be on several Sunday morning talk shows and is instead spending the weekend with her family.
The Speaker was invited to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” according to sources at the networks.
One source said Pelosi (D-Calif.) will be attending her granddaughter’s first communion in Phoenix on Sunday.
The Sunday morning talk show circuit is a traditional place to find politicians trying to recover from political missteps or trying to explain themselves after a week at the top of the news cycle. It can also give them a chance to set the agenda for the week ahead. A Sunday show appearance, with its in-depth, one-on-one interview format, gives politicians a chance to answer many questions on a specific topic, often resulting in a controversy being put to bed.
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), for example, opted to go on the Sunday morning show circuit after his decision to switch parties, appearing on “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” on May 3.
Am I buying the “communion?” Nope! Everyone knows that you go on the Sunday morning circuit if there are current events going on in which you are involved… As many of us already know, the controversies will not be put to bed because Nancy Pelosi is not smart enough to lie well and tends to put her foot in her mouth. The fact that these lies are directed at the national intelligence community only hurts her more.
I think it might be time to find out the truth!
Leon Panetta Speaking Out Against Pelosi
I will be taking bets later… Make a guess for Pelosi stepping down this year…
The sharks are circling and the Democrats sense it. Steny Hoyer wants to be speaker and other Democrats don’t want to be associated with this woman or her statements. Even lefty Leon Panetta is backing the CIA and speaking to his employees to reassure them that they acted appropriately and nobody lied or misled congress.
CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s criticisms.
His message: We didn’t mislead Congress; stay focused on your job.
Panetta’s note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here’s the key graph:
“Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.”
The full Panetta memo is here.
The Wheels On The Bus Go Bump, Bump, Bump
Democrats may have begun to eat their own.
Steny Hoyer, Democrat representative of Maryland and current House Majority leader has been purported to have a long held grudge against Pelosi ever since she became speaker. It appears as if many Democrats are letting Pelosi hang herself and slowly backing away from her and her statements regarding the CIA made earlier today.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, panned the recent criticism of Pelosi as a “distraction” during a verbal tangle with Republican Whip Eric Cantor on the House floor.
But when asked directly whether he shares Pelosi’s belief that the CIA misled Congress, he backed off.
“I have no idea of that. I don’t have a belief of that nature because I have no basis on which to base such a belief,” Hoyer said. “And I certainly hope that’s not the case. And I don’t draw that conclusion.”
Other members of Congress are also not backing up Pelosi’s claims. Senator Lieberman was interviewd on NBC today and supported the CIA over Nancy Pelosi’s “misleading” statements.
Time to break out the popcorn… it was only a matter of time – I’m sure this won’t be the last either!
CIA Will Not Release Rest of Memos Per Cheney’s Request; UPDATE: Cheney Will Appeal Initial Memo Decision
The Obama administration has turned down former Vice President Dick Cheney’s request for the declassification of two CIA reports on the effectiveness of the Agency’s detainee program, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. A letter dated May 7, 2009, from the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, Delores M. Nelson, rejected Cheney’s request because the documents he has requested are involved in a Freedom of Information Act court battle.
“In researching the information in question, we have discovered that it is currently the subject of pending FOIA litigation (Bloche v. Department of Defense, Amnesty International v. Central Intelligence Agency). Therefore, the document is excluded from Mandatory Declassification Review,” Nelson wrote in the letter to the National Archives, the agency responsible for handling Cheney’s request.
This is bad news, but also good – it means that these memos do in fact exist, they are just unfortunately caught up in bureaucratic red tape. This will most likely lead Dick Cheney to continue his offensive against the “truth commission,” the reference of “torture,” and the release of the CIA memos in the first place.
UPDATE:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney will appeal a CIA decision denying his request for the release of memos he’s contended are crucial to proving the success of “enhanced interrogation techniques” of detainees.
Cheney’s office released a two-sentence statement reacting to the denial, “The Obama Administration has denied Vice President Cheney’s request for the declassification of two documents that provide information about the effectiveness of the detainee program. Vice President Cheney is preparing his appeal to this denial.”
