Jello Jay has finally resorted to explaining things to journalists reeeaaalllly slowly, so they can understand that this passage from the SSCI narrative, produced during Jello Jay’s tenure as Senate Intelligence Chair …
After the change in leadership of the Committee in January of 2003, CIA records indicate that the new Chairman of the Committee was briefed on the CIA’s program in early 2003. Although the new Vice-Chairman did not attend that briefing, it was attended by both the staff director and minority staff director of the Committee. [my emphasis]
… means that the new Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2003, a guy named Jay Rockefeller, maintains he did not attend the briefing that the CIA claims he attended. Spelled out all simple-like so reporters can understand it, Jello Jay’s stance reads like this:
We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document. We can tell you that in the particular entry stating that Senator Rockefeller was briefed on February 4th of 2003 with an asterisk also noting him as later individually briefed — that is not correct, or at least is not being reported correctly by people reading the document. The Democratic staff director attended a briefing on Feb. 4, but Senator Rockefeller was not present and was not later briefed individually by anyone in the intelligence community. He was first personally briefed by the intelligence community on Sept 4th, 2003. [my emphasis]
And these passages from the SSCI narrative…
In May 2004, the CIA’s Inspector General issued a classified special review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, a copy of which was provided to the Committee Chairman and Vice Chairman and staff directors in June of 2004. The classified August 1, 2002, OLC opinion was included as an attachment to the Inspector General’s review. That review included information about the CIA’s use of waterboarding on the three detainees.
[snip]
In July 2004, the CIA briefed the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Committee on the facts and conclusions of the Inspector General special review.
… suggest that Jello Jay first learned the full extent of what we were doing with waterboarding in 2004, when he received the IG report that revealed (among other things) that the CIA wasn’t doing what the OLC memos said it was doing.
Senator Rockefeller has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program’s legality and effectiveness. With more information coming to light in 2004, Senator Rockefeller became increasingly concerned about the program,
And this earlier public statement from Jello Jay (as well as details suggesting he pressured CIA to review whether the program violated CAT) …
In May 2005, I wrote the CIA Inspector General requesting over a hundred documents referenced in or pertaining to his May 2004 report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. Included in my letter was a request for the CIA to provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee the CIA’s Office of General Counsel report on the examination of the videotapes and whether they were in compliance with the August 2002 Department of Justice legal opinion concerning interrogation. The CIA refused to provide this and the other detention and interrogation documents to the committee as requested, despite a second written request to CIA Director Goss in September 2005.
It was during this 2005 period that I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. In fact, all members of the congressional intelligence committees were not fully briefed into the CIA interrogation program until the day the President publicly disclosed the program last September.
… suggests Jello Jay has been pushing to examine what CIA was really doing.
… and in early 2005 he launched a full-scale effort to investigate.
Let’s hope that, now that Jello Jay has spelled this all out for the reporters who are unable to read two documents in the same week, they will at least inquire where the discrepancy comes from–and why Leon Panetta is unwilling to vouch for the credibility of CIA’s own record-keeping.