Politico: Still Stumbling Over Obvious Crimes to Cover a He-Said-She-Said Story

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The Politico presents yet another chapter in their serialized he-said-she-said story about whether or not Nancy Pelosi should have and could have objected during the torture briefing she got in fall 2002, once again ignoring the clear evidence that CIA did not notify Congress of actions they had already taken, as required by law.

Nancy Pelosi sat down with CNN’s Candy Crowley tonight and gave her most detailed — and passionate — explanation of her muted behavior during an initial classified briefing on enhanced interrogation procedures in 2002.

Crowley — a tough, well-informed and underrated interviewer — kicked it off by asking the Speaker about about a column by former CIA director and ex-House intel chairman Porter Goss accusing Democrats of collective "amnesia" for urging investigations of waterboarding after remaining relatively mute during those first classified briefings.

PELOSI: Well, first of all, let me say that perhaps we do live in an alternate universe, Porter and I.

Porter’s orientation is that he was a member of the CIA before he came to Congress and he speaks now as a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

CROWLEY: Is he wrong?

PELOSI: Perhaps he is seeing it from his perspective. If they say we have a legal opinion, it means we’re going to use it. That’s not how I heard it. They said they had a legal opinion. They said they weren’t going to use and when they did they would come back to Congress to report to us on that. But that’s how I heard that.

[snip]

Crowley then asked why she didn’t raise objections to the briefers, which riled up the Speaker.

PELOSI: To what end? To what end? No, we’re not — they didn’t say they were doing it. But you know what, I’m not getting into that. The fact is, is that I know what they told us and I know that they did not share our values.

So any briefing that you would get from the Bush administration on the subject is one that is probably something you’re not going to agree with, and two, maybe not the whole truth anyway.

Glenn. Let’s play a little "find the criminal conduct in a stupid beltway interview" game, shall we?

I’ll grant that Nancy Pelosi disagrees with Porter Goss and Crazy Pete Hoekstra on whether or not her complaints about the CIA said it would–in the future–torture would have been effective. I understand that that kind of thing apparently gets your ‘Nads off. 

But do you see that Pelosi is saying the Administration was not giving the whole truth here? Have you thought about what she might be referring to? Here’s a hint–an assertion with which Goss’ comments do not disagree (Hoekstra’s are irrelevant because he wasn’t in that briefing).

they didn’t say they were doing it

The CIA came before the Gang of Four, after they had already waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times in a month, and told the intelligence leaders that they had an opinion that would allow them, in the future, to torture. But they didn’t tell Congress they had already been in the business of torture for at least a month. The Bush Administration and the CIA failed to fulfill their legal obligation to notify Congress before it engaged in this kind of activity–hell, they didn’t even notify them after they had engaged in it, not for some months afterwards.

I get that you like he-said-she-said. But you’d think you might spare some interest in the failure to comply with the law sitting right in front of your face.

But I guess real crime isn’t as fun for you as stupid beltway disputes, huh?

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29 replies
  1. klynn says:

    Did you mean, “..giving the whole truth here?” (In the Goss comments do not disagree paragraph.)

    Thanks for the post. Almost linked to this in my NYT media round-up comment in your Bybee-NYT post, but could not bring myself to!

  2. Akatabi says:

    So let’s say Speaker Pelosi had reservations about torture legality after it had been misrepresented and spun to her in the briefing and she wants to raise an objection (and I think she should have- at the mention that waterboarding was even “on the table”, as it were)– just who does she object to and how? Does she leak to the NY Times? Move to cut the CIA budget for it? Send a nasty note to Bybee? I’m curious just how much power she had to wield as she was just a minority member at that time.

  3. oldtree says:

    I like the part about Crowley being; “a tough, well-informed and underrated interviewer” This from Politico. Hilarious. Crowley isn’t objective and is used as a hatchet because CNN can’t fire her after her lawsuit. I wonder how many more years she has on her “deal” that kept her working in lieu of the lawsuit?
    Why is it that we can get more from the identifying facts about the magazine’s statement and their opinion of the interviewer than we can get from the rest of their publication?

  4. radiofreewill says:

    Thrush has a bright future as a Pandering Rabble-Rowser in Kool Aid Journalism – he really knows how to stir the Propaganda pot!

    The next thing you know, he’ll be wearing a Cheerleader’s Skirt and Shaking Pom-Poms in a Youtube for his readers, too!

    Go Team!

  5. Mary says:

    When is anyone going to ask Pelosi or Goss about whether or not they got the Presidential finding with that briefing. If they didn’t, then it makes it sound more like Pelosi is parsing correctly – if they did, if they were given a Presidential finding it would have gone to when the torture was authorized (there might have been a technical ability to delay notifying Goss and Pelosi when the President first authorized the torture program, but once they were notified they should have received the finding – if they didn’t, then it looks like active misrepresentation which is NOT allowed, vs just non-briefing, which is arguably allowed for a short period of time.

    If they were given a finding, then Pelosi’s parsing crumbles. If they weren’t, Goss’s trumpeting crumbles.

    Then there’s the other thing they should have received, a Presidential Statement as to why they were the only ones getting the briefing and not the full committee. Even if there was not a finding, the statement as to why they were being briefed and no on else, would help sort the nature of who knew what — that’s why it is required by the NSA. And if the Nat Sec Act was violated, Pelosi has absolute immunity for mentioning it on the floor.

    • emptywheel says:

      Given Harman’s statement in her letter, it’s pretty clear they hadn’t been given a finding as late as February 2002, which is consistent with the story that Tenet forced somse kind of WH endorsement of torture out of the WH in June 2003.

      • Mary says:

        IMO, that’s a point to hammer. Congress needs to demand the finding and then demand an explanation of why it wasn’t tendered, as required by the NSA, to the Intel Committee heads when they were briefed. I’m sure there’s a “good faith” reason for that violation of law.

        But even without a finding, and without any squirrelly reason for the finding or lack thereof – they should also have recieved the Statement on why they were being briefed and the full intel committees were not. What happened with that?

        If it wasn’t given, why did they let him get by with that kind of violation?

        • Nell says:

          they should also have recieved the Statement on why they were being briefed and the full intel committees were not. What happened with that?
          If it wasn’t given, why did they let him get by with that kind of violation?

          Didn’t they in fact let the admin get by with only Gang of vs whole-committee briefings time after time after time?

    • sojourner says:

      Just one additional thought that I recall from a couple of years ago. I cannot recall if it was directly related to this or something else, but at some point there were separate briefings being given — and somehow they seemed to shake out according to party lines. The discussion was here (or on the previous site, probably), but there was some consternation and concern that maybe, just maybe, the information delivered was parsed by the administration… I wish I could remember when that was, exactly.

  6. drational says:

    May not be in violation of the law if the decision not to tell congress was memorialized in writing. (another point Crowley and Politico fail to addresss.)
    But they likely failed to disclose that the practice of waterboarding was not “harmless”, that it was thus outside the OLC approval, and that it in fact could require medical attention to prevent death and therefore fit the OLC definition of torture.

    So did Nancy get the full story? If in August 2002 OLC did not (at least as they disclose in their finalized memo), then Nancy probably did not.

    In February, Jane Harman might have gotten a clue that waterboarding was not harmless from her briefing (hence her letter), but again, who is going to believe that they FULLY disclosed?

  7. wavpeac says:

    Well, one thing you have to admit…there were just NO impeachable crimes coming from the bush administration…none, zip, zero and zilch.

    Thank god she took impeachment off the table…she saved the dems the embarrassment of confronting a totally innocent administration. Whew!!

  10. Mary says:

    OT – LOLOLOLOLOLOL While Holder is making his Eurpean “let’s cover up torture” tour, cementing relationships, Judge Garzon in Spain has initiated ANOTHER investigation into Bush torture programs.

    http://blog.taragana.com/n/spa…..amo-44102/

    A Spanish judge opened a probe into the Bush administration over alleged torture of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, pressing ahead Wednesday with a drive that Spain’s own attorney general has said should be waged in the United States, if at all.[um, actually that’s what the AG said about the case against 6 named persons, the old investigation, that was looked at prior to the release of the memos]
    …
    He said documents declassified by the new U.S. government suggest the practice was systematic and ordered at high levels of the US government.

    Garzon’s move is separate from a complaint by human rights lawyers that seeks charges against six specific Bush administration officials.

    …Garzon is opening a separate, broader probe that does not name any specific suspects but targets “possible material authors” of torture, accomplices and those who gave torture orders

    Meanwhile, Holder, who is currently blocking US courts from receving info in hundreds of GITMO, wiretapping and torture cases via assertions of states secrets, is telling Europe that we follow the rule of law and by sure by gosh golly, we can be relied upon to “look at” requests from other courts for evidence:

    U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking with reporters in Berlin before the investigation was announced, did not rule out cooperating with such an investigation.

    “Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it,” Holder said.

    “This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law and to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately-created court, we would obviously respond to it,” he said.

    Holder then proceeded to pull out of his pocket a “Declaration of State Secrets, Executive Privilege, Imperialist American Exceptionalism and Nanner Nanner Nanner,” complete with blanks to be filled in and proudly said: “See, we’ve been working on it”/s

    In any event, Garzon hits on the point that the memos avoid – the kidnap- detention without charge or process as the precursor to mistreatment – whether it is torture or not.

    an authorized and systematic plan of torture and mistreatment of persons denied freedom without any charge whatsoever and without the rights enjoyed by any detainee

    This is attainder – a power we never gave our government; not any part of it. And not only did we not give the President the power of attainder, we expressly prohibited Congress from legislating that power to the President.

      • rkilowatt says:

        re Holder–what’s to worry about complicit? or Marc Rich? Just gimme some more juice power and status.
        [Marc Rich received an infamous BillClinton pardon via Holder’s reccomendation.]

    • rkilowatt says:

      re attainder–many eyes focus on this site and most likely do not understand attainder and will not seek a definition, thus getting no idea or wierd ideas what is meant.

      With my rudimentary idea of attainter as forfeiture of property and civil rights upon being sentenced to death or declared and outlaw [even by some self-assumed “authority”], your view seems too direct and on-target to be missed by some strange word, like attainder.

    • Leen says:

      stewart ends up saying that those who tortured should not be “prosecuted” and those who created the framework to torture should not be “prosecuted”

      What the fuck? Would Stewart say the same thing about those who tortured and killed for Hitler. That they should not have been “prosecuted” What is up with that double standard?

  12. JohnLopresti says:

    I don’t buy that Pelosi would have been incapable of the ontological recognition that the numerous forms of torcha were illegal in our times, irrespective of whether there was a presidential pontificatory ‘finding’ in this instance. The clash with ancient political theory in current guerrilla conflicts I correlate with a sabertooth epoch, the morphing from hunter gatherer to landed gentry. Considering the latter exogenous perspective, a contrast is evident in the following three links, one from Sumer Babylon era, another from much more recent times, around the centuries of early migration of frontier dwellers from France to New France, a tale in this vector with which Pelosi would have been familiar if schooled where I believe she was in Baltimore. That second link provides an aboriginal people’s view of that clash of European medieval philosophy annealed with proselytist coverup of landgrabbing; here is an abstract presentation of the same story, probably closer to the training tale Pelosi had to study as a young girl. I could imagine Freud and Jung would have a hayday with the meaning of the process of civilization and the tocha paradigm’s recrudescence in Y2K+1 USA. All of which is to say, Politico is heavy on slant as often as it is perspicacious, its own brand of satisfying the extremes to garner readership.

  14. tjbs says:

    Did any of these people bring up the fact no one has come up with a 100% effective blood cleaner for both seen and unseen blood?

    They’re up to their necks in blood and it just keeps dripping out.

    Wonderful, fabulous ,marvelous work lady of the lake !!!!!!!!!!!!

  15. foothillsmike says:

    What does it mean when they say “we have a legal opinion” Was the opinion shown to everyone. Is there such a thing as an illegal opinion?

  16. JTMinIA says:

    TEN MORE DAYS AND THE MEMO-WRITIN’ GOEZ ON!

    CITIZEN LAW-KNOWERS … IF YOU GIVE YOURSELF A WAIVER EVERY TEN DAYZ
    THEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO ADMIT WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

    tee hee

  18. freepatriot says:

    george bush did NOTHING WRONG

    but Nancy Pelosi is lying when she says she wasn’t briefed about the torture

    you know, the torture that wasn’t happening

    I LOVE the freepi

    they ain’t figured out that they can’t hang Pelosi for torture without admitting that george bush is the torturer in chief

    if Pelosi KNEW ABOUT IT, that kinda means that GEORGE BUSH DID IT

    the go together folks

    if Pelosi is a liar, george bush is an enemy of humanity

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