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| With PelosiÂ’s blessing, Dems push ahead with probe of CIA |
| 2009-07-14 |
| With their Speaker behind them, House Democrats are pushing ahead with plans to hold a series of hearings investigating instances in which intelligence officials may have misled members of Congress. Senior Democratic aides said that a major announcement could come by the end of week, but it was already clear on Monday that House Democrats are seizing on weekend news reports that former Vice President Dick Cheney hid information from Congress. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the CIA, under the direction of Cheney, developed a secret counterterrorism program and then was directed by the vice president to conceal it from Congress. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the program was a classified initiative to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives. Cheney has not commented on the media reports. Members of both the House and the Senate Intelligence committees learned about the program last week, when CIA Director Leon Panetta told them in classified hearings that he had just learned about the program and had ordered it terminated. But Panetta also told Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence panels that Cheney had directed his predecessors to conceal the program from all members of Congress, even the so-called Gang of Eight House and Senate leaders and top Intelligence committee members, who are directed under federal law to receive regular intelligence briefings. Senior congressional aides said Panetta’s latest briefing angered members of the panels, even though Panetta had only weeks prior admitted to members of the Intelligence committees that the CIA had, under past directors, engaged in obfuscation following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The latest development on Cheney has prodded some senior Democrats to begin calling for hearings, which up until late last week had been something many leading Democrats were hesitant to do. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday signaled that she would give the House Intelligence Committee a green light to investigate incidents in which the CIA misled or lied to Congress, including times when Cheney was supposedly involved. “I think that it behooves the committee to take whatever actions they believe are necessary to get more information on that subject as to whether the intelligence community was directed by the vice president to create a program and intentionally withhold that information from Congress. And further, if these same intelligence community people were asked, ‘Is there anything else we should know?’ whether they said yes or whether they said no,” Pelosi told reporters. Pelosi has previously used the line of looking forward instead of backwards when pressed on other issues, such as impeaching President George W. Bush and prosecuting Bush administration officials. But in the wake of the Cheney reports, she is allowing her panel chairmen to act should they choose to do so. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday said Congress should “absolutely” investigate the fractured relationship between the intelligence community and Congress. But Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Democrat in the upper chamber, says some Democrats are getting ahead of themselves. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Monday, Schumer said if there are egregious violations, they should be investigated. “As for Vice President Cheney, frankly, everyone is jumping the gun,” Schumer said. “We don’t know enough.” After it was noted that other Democrats are calling for a probe of Cheney, Schumer replied, “Different strokes for different folks.” In the lower chamber, two Intelligence panel Democrats — Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who heads the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and, separately, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) — have already called for hearings. Yet the panel’s chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), has not publicly said how he will handle those, and any other, requests. “The chairman is reviewing the information and the options available to him and consulting with the ranking member,” said Courtney Littig, a spokeswoman for the committee. Prior to last week, when it was first made public that Panetta admitted privately to past instances of misleading briefings, Democrats have had a difficult time navigating the politics of the intelligence community’s transgressions. After Pelosi first made the allegation that she had regularly been misled by the CIA, she and Democrats were dogged by charges of making their own questionable claims, which were levied relentlessly by Republicans who demanded that Pelosi either prove her claims or apologize for them. Democrats now believe further revelations about the degree to which the Bush administration misled Congress are giving them political cover. Careful, Nancy. That blood in the water may be your own. “I think it puts the focus back on the Bush administration,” a Democratic aide said. “The Republicans attempted to use this as an issue, but with more and more evidence coming out about the Bush-Cheney administration circumventing Congress completely, it shows it’s a real red herring.” Pelosi on Monday said she only learned of Cheney’s involvement through press reports. Last week she told reporters that she likewise had only heard about Panetta’s admission that agency officials had repeatedly lied to Congress through press reports. That fact, a senior GOP aide said, will lead Republicans to continue to call on Pelosi to provide details about how she was misled and when. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #17 OldPatriot, I wonder. I had the same thought - it's, uh, kinda STUPID to take on the CIA, especially when your attack amounts to slander and has no merit whatsoever. Even reasonable people would be p***ed off. But back to the principal "hook" for this whole thing, I believe Hayden or others had indicated there was a presidential finding on the proposed program. This means that Congress has, literally, "signed off" on something. This whole process, and that of general oversight by the two intel committees, make it extremely doubtful that there's a shred of merit to the incredible allegations about deceiving the Hill. At least it was a few years back, when I was up there and very familiar with this process. But let's not kid ourselves about the down-side for even the most insanely preposterous and risky Dem ploy - they'll pay no price whatsoever, regardless of what they do. There is nothing resembling what we used to call a press, the opposition is pretty much cowardly and inept, and most importantly the electorate is cretinized (I speak especially here about "educated," so-called high-information types). Career-ending gaffes and outrages by high-profile Dems in the last 8 years are too numberous to list. Just one political generation ago (when I was in the middle of it), a single Durbin statement comparing US soldiers to Nazis, a single "the war is lost" statement by a Reid, anything close to Murtha's astounding public slander of Marines in an ongong capital case court martial - all would have marked the end of their careers, or at the least their demotion to second rank, in shame and ignominy. And that's just off the top of my head. And don't forget we just elected a preposterously unfit and unimpressive affirmative action doofus who made campaign-killing gaffes about twice a day, for months. Not to mention having booby-trapped himself with years of insanely impolitic and radical nonsense (Wright, Ayers, etc) that would have until recently kept people off the county supervisors' board in most places in the US. The presidency? Absurd. (and thus the bumbling, farcical performance to date is little surprise) Result? Nothing. But, you say, look at Bambi's cratering poll numbers, the generic ballot, the GOP leading the donks on (gasp!) even Social Security confidence. Yeah, so what. That is 98% the result of ongoing economic problems. An (unlikely) uptick in the economy, even a brief recovery, and the numbers change dramatically - regardless of how idiotic, lawless, or puzzling the WH or Congress are. When the mayor of New Orleans is re-elected, and the Bush administration is demonized, after a Katrina - then there is no doubt a perfect inversion of public understanding and a near-perfect hijacking of the public square by clueless partisans have occurred. It's worse than no accountability - it's reverse accountability. Anyway, will be fun to watch if the donks are dumb enough to stick their hands into this particular meatgrinder - but only in an inside-baseball sort of way. The disgraced, self-beclowned United States of America will not care. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2009-07-14 23:36 |
| #16 They may we live in interesting times. |
| Posted by: GirlThursday 2009-07-14 19:04 |
| #15 The Dems have a death wish. They're trying to socialize the entire country, raise taxes 50-60%, kill incentive, bury health care, destroy small businesses, and enslave the American people. If that weren't bad enough, now they're taking on the country's second-most-important (after NSA) spy agency. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The CIA has a long memory, and are not afraid of taking on government at any level. I expect to see "leaked" reports of various scandals involving Leon Panetta, any Dem in Congress, and our "president" coming out of the woodwork in vast profusion. The next year or two are going to be quite "interesting". |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-07-14 15:40 |
| #14 What I really want Congress to do is to probe the economic collapse and the Federal Reserve. As if our esteemed {spit} Congresscritters will do anything that might really be of use to insure domestic Tranquility, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Or at least they could take lessions in reading comprehension. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-07-14 13:34 |
| #13 Maybe it is time to bring out the video of her getting briefed and FOIA the documents explaining who got riefed and when. Screw her. She is due anyways. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-07-14 12:01 |
| #12 so why don't they divert the money to bailing out minority broadcasters or something or like OMG, divert the money to pay for Michael Jackson's funeral so L.A. doesnt have to!! (sarcasm) |
| Posted by: GirlThursday 2009-07-14 11:38 |
| #11 As Darth Vader just said; the Dems and Nancy Pelosi need all the cover they can get (whether real or manufacttured) to push through their health care legislation. All hail Queen Nancy and King Bambi. |
| Posted by: WolfDog 2009-07-14 10:55 |
| #10 This is probably a good sign. Everytime she decides to stick her nose into something, it usually blows up in her face. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-07-14 10:47 |
| #9 Hey Nancy, ever hear the saying "Never whistle while you're pissing"? |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-07-14 10:45 |
| #8 I forget who called it, but I read a week ago that if the health care bill got sidelined due to bad reviews, that you could expect Bush hearings and probes to come forward. Right on schedule. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-07-14 10:42 |
| #7 Gosh this is timely. Just when the nation's enthusiasm for President Barry's healthcare reform is weakening we get an attention grabbing side show. All the air cover you need to pass some more screwy legislation? |
| Posted by: Don Vito Crolutle2068 2009-07-14 10:01 |
| #6 Elsewhere, General Hayden has debunked this. It is pure political posturing. |
| Posted by: Lagom 2009-07-14 09:50 |
| #5 This has all the markings of a very stupid move. A regular |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-07-14 08:32 |
| #4 Please, PLEASE investigate Cheney! |
| Posted by: A_Rovian_Disciple 2009-07-14 08:27 |
| #3 Why doesn't Congress just cut off all funding for the CIA? They've pretty much neutralized its effectiveness, so why don't they divert the money to bailing out minority broadcasters or something. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-07-14 07:33 |
| #2 The degree to which intel has been politicized by the left these past 8 years sickens me. But deranged zeal shown by the left in Congress is almost fascinating. It is not at all clear that holding hearings raking the former admin over the coals for considering targetted assassinations of terrorists -- which I believe most Americans assume we are doing -- is good politics for the Dems. Yet they cannot help themselves. Bring it on, I say. |
| Posted by: JAB 2009-07-14 01:07 |
| #1 Since Queen Nancy and the Dems insist on walking into it, fair warning. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-07-14 01:03 |