Fox Reports Absence of Presidential Finding, Clear Violation of Law, Yawns
Aw man. The corporate press keeps getting stupider and stupider in their desperation to claim Democrats didn’t do enough to prevent torture after being briefed on it more than six months after the torture started.
This time it’s Fox News, complaining that Jane Harman, in her letter to Scott Muller, raised policy concerns, not legal ones.
California Rep. Jane Harman wrote about policy concerns, not legal concerns, in the letter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing in her claim that she let the top Intelligence Committee Democrat take the lead in addressing complaints to the CIA about "enhanced" interrogation techniques used on terror detainees.
In her Feb. 10, 2003, letter, Harman wrote to CIA General Counsel Scott Muller asking whether President Bush had authorized and approved the enhanced techniques, because of the impact such methods may have on policy.
Now there are two big problems with Fox’s latest pathetic attempt at a gotcha. First, it misquotes Pelosi in several significant ways.
At a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi told reporters that she supported the letter Harman drafted for Muller that raised concerns over the legality of the program.
Pelosi said her staffer told her in February 2003 that Harman and Goss "had been briefed about the use of certain techniques which had been the subject of earlier legal opinions. Following that briefing, a letter raising concerns was sent to CIA general counsel, Scott Muller, by the new Democratic ranking member of committee, the appropriate person to register a protest," Pelosi said
"But no letter or anything else is going to stop them from doing what they’re going to do," she added.
Pelosi added that those briefing her in September 2002 gave her inaccurate and incomplete information. Pelosi’s office issued a statement Thursday saying Pelosi had been told in September 2002 that waterboarding, or simulated drowning, had not been used, but was going to be used in the future.
Here are the complete quotes from Pelosi’s statement.
The CIA briefed me only once on some enhanced interrogation techniques, in September 2002, in my capacity as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee.
I was informed then that Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques was legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed.
Those conducting the briefing promised to inform the appropriate Members of Congress if that technique were to be used in the future.
[snip]
Five months later, in February 2003, a member of my staff informed me that the Republican chairman and new Democratic Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed about the use of certain techniques which had been the subject of earlier legal opinions.
Following that briefing, a letter raising concerns was sent to CIA General Counsel Scott Muller by the new Democratic Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, the appropriate person to register a protest.
But no letter could change the policy.
Fox makes two utterly false statements: that Pelosi said the letter raised legal concerns, and that Pelosi was told they were going to use waterboarding in the future. (I need to double check the full Q&A to make sure Pelosi didn’t say these things in comments, but clearly in her statement–which is what Fox points to–they’re just making shit up.)
But then there’s the other, much more serious problem. The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee was asking for a statement indicating whether or not the President supported this policy.
It is also the case, however, that what was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions. I would like to know what kind of policy review took place and what questions were examined. In particular, I would like to know whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?
If Jane Harman was asking–more than six months after CIA started torturing–whether or not the torture had been "authorized and approved by the President," it’s a pretty big clue that the Administration had not given Congress a Presidential Finding. Or, to put it another way, it’s a pretty big piece of evidence that the Administration and CIA had failed to comply with the law! But Fox News, predictably, is not concerned with the evidence of legal wrong-doing right in front of their face. (And given Cheney’s odd comments, it may well be evidence that Cheney, not Bush, authorized this torture.)
Instead, Fox prefers to make shit up about what Pelosi said, in hopes of continuing to pretend the story is Nancy Pelosi, and not the evidence of legal wrong-doing they’re focusing on.
Keep it up. Someone will stop to listen and think. And THANKS.
EW are you spending your day watching news coverage on the teevee??? I hope you got plenty of Beamish for that…
Isn’t Crazy Pete now demanding an investigation into the CIA? What’s up with that?
Where did I read that? Here somewhere? Maybe in the comments?
Bob in HI
Last thread…2006
Remember in August of 2007 when Pelosi said we didn’t know the half of it? What percentage do we now know?
Good point, now that Pelosi has the majorities she’s been waiting for along with a Dem Pres, then I’d say it’s time for her to deliver on filling us in on the other half+, don’t you? Commission/Prosecutor anyone?
O/T, or back to Siegelman
May 15, 2009 Categories: Obama Administration
Obama to replace U.S. Attorneys
“President Barack Obama plans to replace a “batch” of U.S. Attorneys in the next few weeks and more prosecutors thereafter, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.
. . .
“Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) “Many jurisdictions are waiting desperately to see what is going to be done. As we understand it, the protocol has been that U.S. Attorneys would hand in their resignations and would give the new administration an opportunity to make new appointments, we don’t see that happening quite fast enough,” she said, pointing to complaints about prosecutors in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…..rneys.html
BUT . . .
Appeals court won’t hear Siegelman case, meaning it’s likely he’ll return to jail
BY LARISA ALEXANDROVNA Published: May 15, 2009 Updated 2 hours ago
“The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined a request from former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to review his appeal en banc – meaning the full court.
. . .
“When asked what this development means for the Siegelman case, Horton expressed little hope that Siegelman could avoid going back to jail to serve out what could possibly now be a 20-year term.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..n-to-jail/
AP source: US releases Boumediene from Gitmo
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Friday released the Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was at the center of a Supreme Court battle giving detainees the right to challenge their confinement, an Obama administration official said.
“Lakhdar Boumediene left the U.S. naval facility in Cuba Friday headed to relatives in France, said the official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because the release was not yet cleared for announcement.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s…..TE=DEFAULT
Holy mackerel, and thank you for that news, fatster.
But there are others, and I’ve been fuming all day at the news of what Obama is expected to announce about the reinvention of the tribunals. I don’t only care about Omar Khadr, but many of us do care about that boy and consider it outrageous of both your and our governments that he is still there. An entire body of international law is at stake, and is currently being flouted by both our nations.
My pleasure, ma’am.
Fox lies. We know that, but in this case they must redirect the blame.
The Right is going down in flames and any intelligent Winger clearly understands where the current national discussion is going and what it will do: Torture with graphic detail (pictures and descriptions) will destroy what little trust and agreement remains with the GOP leaders.
The Torture actions being exposed–and the reasons why, the lies during the torture, and the coverup–the totality has the capability to kill the GOP as we know it. Bush proclaimed it: America doesn’t torture. Except we did. America isn’t going to forgive and forget, and the few thinkers left on the conservative political side know it.
This is why I can’t believe the republicans are not denouncing torture! It’s just unbelievable to listen to people like Graham and Hoekstra.
and Dan Lungren
I know the man
I’ve spoken with him
I can’t believe I saw that SCHMUCK attacking Nancy Pelosi on msnbc yesterday
I’m beginning to think Obama’s delay of the photo release is a “Buy One Get One Free” sale on rope
get enough to hang yourself, and we’ll GIVE YOU enough to hang one of your friends
Did you trick Lungren with the italics? Did he even question you? BTW, the photos (or photos like THE photos) are out. An Austrailian. Orange.
seeing lungren really made all of this hit home
that dude watched a football game on my television when I was workin, back in the day. He had issues with my disrespect of the niners
and I’ve spoken with him in a work setting a few other times (I was doing election department stuff, an he was in the office filing papers, I’ve never worked for any political party)
I wondered what the fuck he was doing, smearing this shit all over himself. I even called his office, and very politely explained to a nice lady exactly what he was getting in to,and I pleaded with her to warn him to stop defending torture
I never been that polite on the phone in my life
if I can be that shocked at this point, imagine what yer average joe palooka voter is gonna think when the truth is finally revealed
You’ve spoken to him? I get 3-page letters and robo-calls announcing his next appearance. I’m still trying to decipher a letter from a few months ago.
not in a political way, but ya, I know the guy
I should prolly mention that my mother was a maven with the California Election Code for, like 30 years, so candidates were constantly trying to lure her into working on political campaigns
I’ve met a LOT of local politicians in my time. One of em tried to pinch my cheek once, when I as about 8. He almost lost some fingers
as I got older, my mother actually referred me to a few of the nuttier or “less viable” candidates as a possible source of information
some of them still call my house looking for advice, and you would not believe what some of these people tell me
did you know politics was full of thugs and liars ???
one guy was surprised that I wasn’t shocked about that
My favorite pic of Dan is here.
http://i15.photobucket.com/alb…..520_mn.jpg
In the future, I’ll check out local politicians’ hands to see if there are any missing fingers.
Thugs and liars? Who knew?
…it’s a pretty big clue that the Administration had not given Congress a Presidential Finding.
For what it’s worth, a little semantic distinction: the law only requires that a Presidential finding be “reported” to the Gang of Eight. The President has to actually give the finding only to the chairman of each intelligence committee.
Which Harman was.
But its good to keep things as specific as possible. Another thing that was required to be given was the Presidential statement identifying the reasons why the full committees were not being briefed.
Only if it’s a covert action, but the statutory definition of “covert action” excludes: “activities the primary purpose of which is to acquire intelligence, traditional counterintelligence activities, traditional activities to improve or maintain the operational security of United States Government programs, or administrative activities.”
It seems like any interrogation program would have acquisition of intelligence as its primary purpose, which would put it outside the definition.
A few weeks ago, I made the same argument to EW.
She stepped up and delivered the coup de grace.
Later in that thread Mary stopped in and pointed out that even if it was intelligence gathering, according to the National Security Act of 1947 (as amended) all members of the intelligence committees were supposed to have been briefed (not via a finding, but an intel agency briefing).
Well, several things.
First, the language quoted in that previous post was from a Reagan National Security Decision Directive. Did Bush II adopt that NSDD for his administration? Bush II’s administration didn’t believe presidents were necessarily bound to follow their own E.O.s, so it’s not clear to me how an NSDD would constrain anything they wanted to do.
Second, even if Bush II decided to treat the CIA interrogation program as a covert action, it’s not clear to me that they would be required to follow the National Security Act’s CA mandates, because the program appears not to be a CA by definition.
Third, how is the CIA interrogation program related to any rendition program under Clinton, which is implicit in the question EW asked, that you linked to.
Fourth, even if it is related, the National Security Act only requires that notification be given of any significant change “in the same manner as findings are reported pursuant to subsection (c).” 50 U.S.C. § 413b(d). Subsection (c), of course, allows the President only to brief the Gang of Eight and only provide a written copy to the chairman of each intelligence committee.
Fifth, the language only requires the administration to keep Congress “fully and currently informed.” What does that mean? Since subsection (b) includes the following phrase, “To the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters. . .,” maybe “fully and currently informed” means we don’t have to disclose absolutely everything, on the risk that sources & methods would be leaked. That same language is repeated in § 413a(a), which governs disclosure to Congress of intelligence activities other than CAs. But then you have § 413(e) that says, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authority to withhold information from the congressional intelligence committees on the grounds that providing the information to the congressional intelligence committees would constitute the unauthorized disclosure of classified information or information relating to intelligence sources and methods.” How are §§ 413a(a)/413b(b) and 413(e) not facially inconsistent?
Exactly the point.
You either had something which was not a covert activity, which is required to be briefed to the full committees, or something that is a covert activity, in which case the President can require limited breifing (at least for some point in time) and the the ability of the President (and the CIA) to limit briefing to less than the full intelligence committees is reflected by two documents – one is a finding that should exist on or about the time that the intel heads are briefed; the other is an explanation of why the President limited the briefing that should show up at least when the full committees are briefed.
Alfred Cumming (one of the staff members briefed) in a CRS for Harman on the wiretap program, made it really clear that the way things work is that many of the briefings on non-covert actions are given is to basically brief the intel heads also, but they then go on to brief the full committees.
So how do the intel committee heads know, when getting a briefing, that it will or will not be one that they can talk to the rest of the committee about?
Well, there should be a finding. If not the intel heads should raise they don’t think they are prohibited from talking to the full committees. But even if they don’t, once the full committees get briefed, there should be an explanation of why they weren’t briefed originally and the only valid explanation ties back to a prior finding.
So … why weren’t the full intel committees briefed? And if it was for any reason other than a covert activity tied to a finding, it was that much more evidentiary of criminal intent (but the intel committee heads should have been saying they would go to full committee without a finding and detemination of covert activity will be implemented and why it is deemed such) to cover up.
These are the kinds of questions IMO that should be being asked – if Pelosi and Goss were briefed, why didn’t they talk to the full committees? If it was bc they were told they couldn’t – where was the support for that – a finding? If there wasn’t one, why didn’t they ask? When the full committees did get a briefing, where was the statement explaining why they were not briefed originally? If CIA/Pres say no such statement is required bc the action was not a covert activity, then they are saying the broke the law, the NSA, originally in the limited briefing. If they are saying that it was a covert activity and so they don’t have to give the statement, then they ahve to give the finding.
This starts to show that the CIA has to have intentionally failed to inform Congress one way or the other.
On the covert action front, this is already getting too long and I’m trying to get real work done too, but that takes me to another place where I think no questions have been hammered to Congress and the Exec.
A couple of things make the whole program something very different than just an activity whose primary purpose is intelligence gathering. The one that people will think of in connection with the EITs is that they were proposing activities that involved governmentally approved physical assaults on detainees. I think almost any qualified intel officer is going to say that slamming someone into a wall headfirst over and over isn’t a intelligence gathering operation. You might get good or bad intel as a side result, but it is not intelligence gathering.
But even if you put that aside and say that somehow there is a argument of holding people in physical assault programs is primarily an intelligence operation, there is something that isn’t getting the direct attention it should and that is a covert activity IMO. That was creation of blacksites and of a program to disappear people. And lets face it, the disappearances continued long after any intell gathering ops in respect of the people ceased, but the program to open and run gulags and disappear people was very separate and apart from intell gathering. Becoming the long term jailor is not intelligence gathering. It is also the big elephant in the room
It almost doesn’t matter if members of Congress were being told of a program to beat up on people after they were disappeared or not – they knew through either breifings or operating brain cells (after the all the hearings on ghost detainees) that the US President and CIA were disappearing people To GITMO (remember how blacked out all that ws at first on a names front) or elsewhere. And that should have caused a huge uproar. The fact that it didn’t lead to someone as critical to getting at the truth of the run up to war, al-Libi, becoming permanently disappeared.
Why did Congress never press for investigations re: al-Libi afther he recanted? Another part of the NSA requires briefings to the committees of intel failures – what were they told about al-Libi?
Just a fast “yet another” item – who, if anyone, in Congress was told that the FBI would not participate in the physical assault program against disaapeared detainees and as a result, we were substituting questioning by an Arab speaking FBI officer well versed in al-Qaeda with – a non-Arabic speaking guy named Deuce?
They know because a Finding is only presented for a Covert Action (and it is expressly identified as a Presidential Finding).
A Covert Action is not intelligence collection, by fact and by definition.
Exactly – that was a rhetorical quesiton.
The only way that Goss, Pelosi, etc. would have been prevented from talking to the full committees about the briefing would have been if there was a finding and it was a covert action.
If there was no such thing, then the NSA says that the intelligence gathering is something that the full committees have to be kept fully informed upon. Get the heads you lose, tails I win part of this?
The only way for CIA to claim that Goss et al were not allowed to talk to the committee about things would be a finding. So where was it? That’s what Harman was getting at in part in her letter.
I disagree about this, though A Covert Action is not intelligence collection, by fact and by definition. The statute reads vice versa on this – that an intelligence gathering activity is not a covert action, by definition.
So then you get into the facts of whether or not something really can be defined as primarily an intelligence gathering activity
On the definition of “covert action,” this is 50 U.S.C. § 413b(e):
Umm????
I’ve read it – I’ve been hammering away for a long long long time on the lack of adherence to the NSA on a lot of different fronts. That’s why in my 98 I said that, unlike what Aeon said, “A Covert Action is not intelligence collection, by fact and by definition” the Act approached it from the other way, not with a definition of intelligence collection that excludes covert actions, but with a definition of covert action that excludes intelligence activities.
So I’m not sure what your response is?
As to your 101 -nope, a question now and then doesn’t cut it. The statute deals with primary purpose. The establishment of blacksites was not for the primary purpose of gathering intelligence, it was for the primary purpose of disappearing people. The budget for the building and sites (Panetta says he “saved” us 4 mill by closing the contracts on the sites) aren’t primarily for intelligence gathering – indeed, someone will have to point to where any intelligence was gathered vis a vis Khalid el-Masri – but running gulags for the purpose if disappearing people is under any analysis an activity separate and apart from gathering intelligence.
I could do a much longer brief on it, but I think that’s very clear. [And I realize you’re playing devil’s advocate, but the primary purpose language is there for a reason and being able to wash all sins with one question is it]
You 105 is what I’ve been teeth grindy about forever and no one ever asks this. There are reference and hints all over that such a finding exists, that the CIA required it at a point in time, not being content with just the OLC opinions.
And as I keep hitting (apologies to the dead horse) Members of Congress (esp now that the full committees have been involved and since some staff were involved from the get go) have to have known that either:
there was a finding, in which case, if the CIA/Pres took the position that the program was a covert program, perhaps they can get around not briefing the full committees up front but they are admitting intell gathering wasn’t the primary purpose and they are still not getting around the failures to do gang of 8 briefing and they also have to come up with a statement from the time of the full committee briefing on what where the reasons and extraordinary circumstances as to why the full committees were not included in the original briefings, or
there was no finding and the failure for years to keep the committees fully informed on the CIA’s disappearance-assault-battery-human experimentation-interrogation programfor years was purposefully in violation of the Act
Again, on either front some of the Intel committee heads out to be swinging with something. As I’ve been trying to say, if some CIA guys walk in an brief Pelosi as intel chair on something, there’s no reason for her to not discuss it with the full committee unless there is something else – that something else is someone or some entity, somehow, telling her that she couldn’t do that. And no one is poking the whens, wheres and howfors on that. Because that is where there is going to be a rock meet hard spot place for the briefers (and maybe Pelosi, maybe not) who briefed her.
If she was told it was a covert op, there are all the other issues.
If she was told it wasn’t a covert op, there was no Presidential finding, but she just couldn’t tell the committees (even though a staffer was also being briefed) it puts a very different light on what people should or should not have done.
The problem is, all CIA would have to do is question the detainees every once and a while, and they could claim the detention was part of the intelligence gathering program.
And the mindset of CIA lawyers is to ask: what can we do that is literally consistent with the statutory language, regardless of what the spirit of the statute is? So, becoming the long-term jailor could plausibly be intelligence gathering, if they ask the detainees questions.
Obviously, I think it’s wrong, but I’m just arguing what I can imagine CIA lawyers arguing.
Also, something overlooked that is worth mentioning:
§ 503(a)(5) of the National Security Act of 1947 (as amended) (50 U.S.C. § 413b(a)(5)) provides, “A finding may not authorize any action that would violate the Constitution or any statute of the United States.”
So even if there was a Presidential finding, if the “EITs” amount to a violation of the Torture Statute, any other statute, or the Constitution, that Presidential finding would appear to be a nullity as a matter of law.
Hm. Cancel my 2 above. Those are both related to covert actions. It’s pretty clear that the CIA program was not a covert action. My bad.
Actually, Michael Hayden said it was–or at least started as one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_finding
Ok, so the President is required to make some kind of decree about a policy–like torture–and then pass a written copy to the Chairman of each intelligence committee. The Chairs would then be required to inform the rest of the gang of 8?
Jane Harman was never informed of any decree because she asked whether there was a Presidential finding about torture. So, either there never was one, there was one and the Chair(s) never got it, or the Chair(s) got it and never informed the full gang of 8.
Maybe there is some criminal conspiracy going on here. Maybe the Chairmen colluded with the Admin to keep the D’s in the dark. Just a thought.
Well, the shit’s hitting the fan so fast that evidently Fox can’t pick out key bits. Yesterday on MSNBC, Jack Rice said, “…this is reminiscent now of Iran-Contra, and what we’re talking about now is false testimony [by the CIA]… a potential federal crime…. the shift is coming…”
The wingnuts are in a frenzy to ignore the sh*t oozing out from under the doorjamb. They are throwing as much ’sand in the eyes’ of the US public as fast as they possibly can. Stupid, but it’s their only option at this point.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this is a direct reaction to the Duelfer interview last night on Maddow, along with the hearing 2 days ago, as well as the other very good interviews this week. Think back to Monday; things have unraveled for them phenomenally in this week alone.
Things are very different from even a few weeks back when Karpinski spoke out publicly.
Why do you think so? Why not just STFU?
Panetta is saying the CIA didn’t lie. (Huffpo)
Panetta v Pelosi, et.al
Need hearings to smoke out the truth?
Ok…
So, is he basing that on his disclaimer on the briefing list? “Well, we did say that we couldn’t vouch for this list…”
Can’t wait for EW to pick apart the latest CYA at CIA.
FunnyDIva
Obama needs to reorganize the CIA into oblivion or abolish through
Executive Order… make it an offshore subsidiary of the FBI…
FOX is just fake news and propaganda candy for the fact-free, faith-based portion of the electorate. FOX = failure. It’s a shame, because we could use some of their votes. They are no less dissatisfied than progressives.
It’s been a while since I had National Security Law, but now that I’m looking at it, a few observations:
First, Presidential findings are only required for covert actions. But the statutory definition of “covert action” excludes, among other things, “activities the primary purpose of which is to acquire intelligence, traditional counterintelligence activities, traditional activities to improve or maintain the operational security of United States Government programs, or administrative activities.”
Second, for “intelligence activities” that are not covert actions, the President is only required to keep the intelligence committees “fully and currently informed.” Of course, that is language wide enough to drive a truck through. Particularly since the statutory section requiring reporting of intelligence activities other than covert actions reads:
Emphasis added.
Do we actually know who the CIA briefers were? Did the briefers actually know, for sure, all about the torture and that it had already been occurring?
How much did the briefers know? This is very important. Because maybe they didn’t know a whole lot either. Or if they did know a whole lot, did they know the torture had already occurred? If so, did they hide that information? If they knew a lot, were they attempting to conceal what they knew or were they intending to involve “too few” (based on the law) Congress persons in a kind of cover-up? Because somehow these CIA briefers are involved here. And I think that level of involvement is crucial to this whole big distraction the repubs want to stir up.
Let’s get the briefers story!!! Let’s see documents! You can’t go accusing Nancy Pelosi and others in the absence of EVIDENCE!
Let’s confront the repubs on this.
Excellent questions!
Bob in HI
The briefers in that first breifing were from CTC–counterterrorism.
That makes it likely that the then head of CTC did the briefing, who was then Jose Rodriguez. The guy who okayed the destruction of the torture tapes.
OT and I don’t care
PROP H8 has been overturned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Well, Hallelujah!!! What cause for celebration!
HA HA
hey, morman church, thanks for making that a part of established law in california
The Mormons were just playing a little 11 dimensional chess ; )
cleaning screen
Couldn’t help myself ; )
It’s Friday, after all, and we don’t have football to look forward. SO we can continue to kick people who continue to insist, despite the plain language in front of them, that there is 1) a conflict, and 2) that Pelosi hasn’t been consistent all along and 3) that Goss, to date, has been completely consistent with her statement.
Somehow tanbark thinks Goss is protecting Nancy Pelosi or some such rot. Or can’t read English. Not sure which. Maybe a bit of both.
Oh boy, I have permission to be sarcastic? How cool is that! I would almost give up football if I could do this every Friday ; ) Well, no, that’s not true ; ) Speaking of which anyone know if Brett’s going Purple when the fall fashions come out?
A HOAX! That link is from 2008! It was a twitter hoax! Which is just disgusting!
oppps, its a year old eh
you expect me to just take your word for that ???
no graphs, charts, intelligence test results ???
have you put any of these people in a maze to see if they could find their way out (and leading them with cheese IS cheating, btw)
Nate Silver would PROVE they’re getting stupider and stupider
he’d use tests, charts, an graphs (an a bunch of math that I never felt compelled to double check)
till ya do that, I’ll just have to assume that faux gnus (you spelled it wrong, btw) anchors are just as stupid today as they were yesterday
and just for the record, joe conoson mis-attributed a hamlet quote to macbeth
when will you bloggers learn it’s all about credibility
sorry ew, I’m trying to infiltrate my local repuglitarded home gourd unit (yeah “home gourd Unit”, they don’t spell so good) an this is my tryout. don’t worry, they can’t read italicized letters. I told em it was spanish)
I hope I passed the audition
(wink)
By the way, the section I just quoted above is the same as it was before the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004; it’s just that the IRTPA substituted “Director of National Intelligence” for “Director of Central Intelligence.” Other than that, those sections were all enacted as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 1991.
I think the Prop 8 thing was a Twitter hoax. The story linked to above was from 2008.
EW: “…failed to comply with the law!”
This is pretty exciting and all – would be fun to see Dick get hung finally if it comes to pass. Can you imagine the REAL fun yet to come though, when/if it finally comes out that he and his gang are the principal actors in the 9/11 saga? When it becomes undeniable that the hijackers were just bit players, or even that indeed there were never any hijackers at all? Oops. That is possible isn’t it.
Spend a few moments sorting through the thousands of players and mere observers/commenters who have swallowed the official story on WTC, have staked their careers, credibility, lives on that story being the honest-to-god truth. Or most of it. Or a part of it…
The real entertainment is yet to come, imho.
I have a pretty, shiny hat for you to wear…
dmvdc, I see that you did indeed spend a few moments sorting though, didn’t like what you saw one bit, and promptly clamped a bright shiny object over my head.
I appreciate that, as does my minder; I really shouldn’t be let out in public.
The price of playing Pelosi-told-the-truth poker just went up.
Leon Panetta, who is, in my opinion, the best “hire” Obama has made, and who is arguably, the most sane and decent director that the CIA has ever had, has just come out and said that the CIA’s account of the briefings is true.
So now, the people who are trying to crank up the trials (with zero concern for the political cost of it to us) have another “sell-out” to complain about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..04005.html
So then clearly you think Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, and Bob Graham are lying?
Panetta is peddling a piece of crap briefings doc, it’s so dodgy that even he refused to vouch for it’s veracity. And you expect me to think he is one of the good guys? Um, no. He lost every shred of credibility he ever had in my book. The guy has either been duped or is dishonest himself. Either way, I’m not impressed.
leon pannetta says the cia doean’t lie to congress
Bob Graham AND BOB GRAHAMS NOTEBOOKS say otherwise
leon is a nice guy
but when the choice is between him an credible evidence, leon loses every time
thanks for plying
please play again
Until we can read the exact text of Panetta’s internal message to CIA staff, it’s prudent to assume the media has distorted what he actually said.
We were not the intended audience; what little I’ve seen of the message in outlets could be readily misinterpreted.
I’d like to know who leaked it if it was an internal message to boost morale of staffers, though, and why…
[edit: BTW, I’ll point out we’ve been derailed. We’re not looking at working on documents or timelines to support Marcy’s work. Feeling guilty here myself, because it’s taking me forever to interpret some documents and I’m letting this get in my way.]
Read here.
tanbark
I’m curious. Where in this passage do you see Panetta saying, “CIA told Pelosi they had already waterboarded”?
Cause absent that you’re still barking gibberish with Karl ROve.
Thanks to dmvdc @60, we can see exactly what Panetta said: Message from the Director: Turning Down the Volume.
This is simply a message from the boss to the employees: stop gabbing around the water cooler and get back to work.
It’s ludicrous to read any more into it than that.
(Reminder: when sourcing material, links to pages that provide the full, unedited version are far more useful than links to rehashes or excerpts.)
Isn’t the Headline that we are Racing towards, which looks like a Cliff to the Goopers:
“Bush and Cheney Tortured to Deceive US into Falsely Invading Iraq”
or something like that?
I dont think Graham lied; haven’t studied the situation with Rockefeller, but Pelosi is clearly indulging in some wordfutzing and parsing about what she was told by the CIA. And, for the umpteenth time, she has admitted that she knew the waterboarding, etc., since way back in 2003, and had diddly to say about it. That so many people defending her believe that that doesn’t degrade her recently expressed opposition to it, is astounding.
Now, let me ask you:
Do you think that Panetta is lying?
Or that CIA officials are lying to Panetta? Creating breifing paperwork?
I honestly don’t know what to believe. I think Graham isn’t lying. I think we need to know the whole, absolute, unvarnished truth, about everything. We can’t hide this any more or pretend it never happened. We have to know the truth.
I think congressional oversight of the intelligence community is a joke, as a general matter. I think we need major reform of the legal regime governing intelligence activities. I quoted a portion of the National Security Act above. It’s too easy to get around, and presidents have been doing so since Bush I issued a signing statement on the FY91 Intel Authorization Act.
I think Democrats need to grow a spine and stop letting Cheney shape the story.
In short, I think we need full disclosure. Now.
I so agree! Today we have one leading politician saying she wasn’t told, and we have others who say she was, but they weren’t there and are going by a memo done by the CIA through what participants remember, and by the way she should have figured it out by the language even though it wasn’t specified. Meanwhile we have other politicians saying they were told, weren’t told, were kinda told, knew, didn’t know, knew in advance, blah blah blah. Spin and falsehoods, filtered through a lying and lazy press apparently incapable of intelligently reporting facts and timelines.
We need some serious investigation activity. With teeth and cuffs and a willingness to use Real Law Tools. Meaning: vital and important laws appear to have been violated by people in the highest levels of government, therefore we need Fitz (or an independent prosecutor at his level).
I’ll take Robert Graham’s notes to Panetta’s, “I’m trying to keep the agency from implosion talk,” hands down. Notice the language is again geared toward Pelosi not Graham. Let him state on the record that Graham’s account does not jive. We know the CIA had to come back to Graham and say, “Oops, our bad.” Panetta was wrong to give that speech.
What TheraP @ 23 said.
Klynn @ 45: Why was he wrong? He’s saying that the briefer’s notes support the agency’s claim. He’s the Director; he has a right, a duty, to say that, if it’s true. And this can be resolved by making public, or having reviewed by impartial parties, the briefing notes.
Which may be what we’re heading for. I hope so. As someone who thinks that no good will come of putting the assholes on never-ending trial, I’ll take the chance. You?
As far as the “gearing of the language” goes, as you note, the CIA has already been forced to admit that they were wrong about the briefings of Graham. It’s worth pointing that out, for sure, but that doesn’t mean that Pelosi, who, again, is obviously playing word games, is accurate in her description of her briefing.
And again (can’t get away from this…) she knew about the waterboarding 5 months after the disputed briefing, and said nothing for most of 6 years.
There are laws prohibiting the disclosure of classified information. So she should have spilled the beans and done a follow up interview from a jail cell?
geez ya fuckin mook,you ADMIT its torture, and you’re STILL stupid enough to say this ???
george bush KNEW before it hapened
george bush ORDERED it
and george bush LIED TO YOUR FACE FOR 8 YEARS ABOUT IT
and you want to punish Pelosi because she might have KNOWN ABOUT IT
maybe we should deal with the guys who ordered the torture and the guys who actually preformed the torture before we worry about people who KNEW about it after the fact
what do tou think, dip shit ???
are we gonna do this the logical way ???
or the other way …
DMVDC; with you ALL the way. I like the idea of getting the CIA on the record on stuff. :o)
It APPEARS Graham is telling the truth, at least about the briefing “mis-statement” by the Agency.
And, FreePatriot, you are playing with words, yourself. Can I play? Thanks. :o) Panetta didn’t make a generic statement “the agency doesn’t lie” in that speech. He said that “the agency briefed lawmakers truthfully” and he was talking specifically about the 40 or so briefings to the congers.
He knows, just as well as we know, that the CIA has lied copiously in the past. They lied, or were mistaken (whichever you like) about the briefings they described to Graham. But that does not mean that Pelosi is telling the truth. Which is something that some of the people championing her, don’t seem to understand.
As DMV said; let’s get the briefing notes front and center, if possible. And it may not be possible, since either the speaker of the House of the United States Congress, or the Director of the CIA is going to be shown to be, to one degree or another, a liar, themselves. And that’s a lot of horsepower and impetus toward a “no decision” decision to bury the briefing under the “national security” blanket, or some other hidey-hole.
I would love to see it resolved, but thinking about it, I doubt we’ll see those notes coming to light.
But having Panetta insist that the briefer’s didn’t lie to Pelosi, means that the prosecutorial diggers have a tougher row to hoe, to try to gin up indictments and trials.
Phred @ 51; I’m confused. Do you mean that Panetta lost credibility by taking over at Langley? I was practically overjoyed about that.
Or do you mean that Panetta lost credibility by standing up to Pelosi?
Which, given her track record of sitting up and wagging her tail for bushCo for all those years, is also a good thing, to me. It’s worth pointing out that during those years, Nancy got savaged with some regularity, on the progressive blogs (and rightly so, my 2C) but now that she has discovered her “outrage” about waterboarding nearly 6 years after learning that the bushies WERE torturing, and now that she was looking to be of some use to the people whose hair is on fire to bog us down in practically useless and certain-to-go-on-forever-trials of the Bush higher-ups, all that seems to have been forgiven.
I’m sorry. Not by me.
My apologies for being unclear. Panetta lost credibility by passing off a highly suspect document (the briefings doc) as being legitimate. I have zero confidence in his abilities or his honesty as a result of that act.
All I can say is: If the CIA was smart enough to have preserved tapes of its interrogations at that point, why was it not smart enough to preserve tapes of its briefings?
These are spooks! They might have known this would come back to bite them. It would have been so simple to compare the tapes of one with tapes of another!
Now we’re left with transcripts of interrogations. And briefings, where those briefed were not allowed to take notes. And no proof, so far as we know, of what they actually were exposed to.
This, to my mind, is nonsense! It sets people up if one party can take notes or has “the record” – but I want proof of that – and the other party is not allowed any record except recollection.
It’s nonsense! The unfairness here is beyond belief!
Imagine students in a class not allowed to take notes. Then subjected to an exam. And the professor claims they were “exposed” to the material. When none of them has any notes!
They could not take notes or talk to each other. Can somebody please agree with me this is nonsense?
Mike @ 57, the notion that Pelosi’s insisting on pursuing, even in-house, the truth about the bush administration’s use of torture would have resulted in her going to jail, is laughable.
As a matter of fact, if she’d had one ounce of political courage, she could have held a big, fat, presser, said that they were doing it, and dared them to come after her. That would have been a knee to the groin of the warbots. Instead, Pelosi, to my knowledge, never risked a micron of political power or credibility by going after the bushmasters. Not a quark. As with way too many others, she went along to get along.
Defending her against the charges that she’s playing both ends of the thing, which she has done for years, when she knew some of the worst truths about the Bush administration, is something that I’m just not going to; particularly since it’s obvious that she’s been farting and tap-dancing about what she knew and when she knew it.
“Are we going to do this the logical way?”
Evidently not, since you’re doing it the peckerhead way.
TheraP, I don’t think the briefings were recorded on tape. In fact, I’d be surprised if the briefers took notes as they were talking, but you ask a good question, about the mechanics of it.
Panetta issued a statement to his troops about an hour ago (h/t TPM)
Greg Sargent has more
Greg Sargent, Take The Second: “Panetta is also amplifying and repeating the agency’s refusal to promise that the recently-released documents offer a reliable version of how and when members of Congress were briefed on the use of torture techniques” — out of which, based as it is on the, you know, actual words in Panetta’s statement, appears to qualify as some combination of fair comment and accuracy.
Greg Sarget, Take the First: “Panetta is now pushing back against Nancy Pelosi’s claims” — out of which, based on, you know, anything in Panetta’s statement, or elsewhere in the universe of known facts, orifice he’s pulled that, we cannot tell.
If nothing else, Panetta’s presser is going to help draw a clearer line, and from that maybe we will get some resolution of what was actually said at Pelosi’s briefing.
But it’s still not the crux. I insist, that lies in her knowledge that they were doing it, and saying nothing about it.
But it’s still not the crux. I insist, that lies in her knowledge that they were doing it, and saying nothing about it.
See, and I think the crux of the issue is that the United States of America tortured people.
Exactly right.
Yah, so she was going to report information for which she had no proof since they didn’t brief her. She was going to violate the laws in regard to confidential security information. Announcing to the world what she suspected to be true, not having the actual proof. She was going to violate these rules by holding a presser and outing them all. She was going to do this to a president that flaunted executive privilege and was arguing the “right” to call anyone an enemy combatant and deprive them of a trial. She was going to face this administration who she has seen repeatedly lie, and alter the evidence. Yah, I think that would have worked. It’s too bad she didn’t have the brass ovaries to do it.
But the bottom line is that the United states government tortured people.
cb12 @ 68; all well and good, but in Panetta’s statement that I linked to, he said that the CIA told the truth at the briefings. Which, to me, is unequivocal.
And Sargent neglected to mention that Panetta, with his “it’s up to congress…” statement, is clearly inviting congress to ask to review the briefing notes. Let’s see if they’ve got the spittle to go for at least some degree of resolution of this. Maybe I’m wrong about the importance of this resulting in there being some under-the-table agreement to bury it.
Maybe we will get to see the notes. I hope so.
I just made a strange connection:
Obama + Torture pictures
Nixon + Audio tapes
When Panetta says “contemporaneous records from September 2002″ does he mean actual records recorded live during briefings or does he mean notes taken in September about briefings in September?
Contemporaneous to the briefing or contemporaneous to the month of the briefing?
All this stuff about he said, she said, which the MSM loves, is a bright shiny object to distract us from this uncomfortable fact:
The U.S. Government has engaged in a series of war crimes.
(I wanted to write that in all caps, but that’s a no-no.)
We are legally obligated, by our laws and treaties, to investigate and prosecute.
Bob in HI
DMV @ 70, we sure did, and I’d like to see the ones responsible called to account for it, but not if it’s going to cost us a ton of political capital to do it, which Obama is going to need desperately, as he tries to get us out of the bloody quagmire that Bush created, and in which far, far, more people have died, AND been tortured, that suffed those fates at the hands of the CIA.
I believe you said you’re a lawyer. Would you like to be the first poster on here to tell us what you think the chances are of getting indictments?
And then, convictions?
And what do you think the chances are that any conviction would be appealed? Or that the appeal might go all the way to SCOTUS and it’s conservative majority?
I’d like to hear someone talk about those things. So far, no luck.
I’m waiting for Obama to come out and tell us that any members of Congress who relied on briefings from the CIA that was relying on memos from the OLC that was relying on the secrecy of not having to turn over its memos to Congress — will not be prosecuted.
Graham walked the press through the important questions:
* Did the United States use torture?
* Was that within the law?
* Who authorized it?
* What were the consequences of that?
* Questions about the bookkeeping of the CIA.
* What was going on at the CIA?
* Who was directing the CIA?
* Who were those authorities?
* What was the basis of their action and what was their motivation?
(Extracted by TheraP from the Schuster interview with Graham)
When you have Graham’s well document journals and Graham putting these questions out, Panetta had to get something out to his troops. The good guys are not going to tolerate gross mistakes. Right now, Panetta is dealing with the corps wondering who-is-who within their ranks. This internal struggle is not a good thing.
Phred @ 72; thanks for the reply. I haven’t had a chance to look at that, do you have the link handy?
Here’s an excerpt from bmaz’ post last week…
Emphasis mine.
If you read through the subsequent threads here at EW’s place on the topic, you will see that I was one of several people ripping this bs doc to shreds. Although I still think WO made the best observation that the CIA claims to have briefed Porter Goss as a member of the HPSCI when in fact Goss was head of the CIA. Read through the threads, they will clear up for you why several of us are openly hostile to this particular document and hence the CIA/Panetta spin in general.
I’m thinking of another example here. The difference between learning the rules of the road. And learning to drive. If the CIA briefed on the Rules of the Road, that’s the not the same at all as giving a “driving lesson”. Taking a test on the rules of the road is also not the same as actually going for a driver’s test.
In my mind, to focus on the ones briefed here is a mistake. We need to focus on those who wrote the “rules of the road” (the torture memos) and those who who did the driving, whether they obeyed the rules or not (those who designed and conducted interrogations and/or torture).
That’s where the clues lie. Not in Congress!
We have to insist on following the trail of clues in the executive and the trail of tears in interrogation rooms and cells, where human beings were subjected to inhumane, degrading, and despicable treatment to try and obtain “evidence” that never existed!
What a distraction we’re being subjected to. When we need all this investigated!
One of the things that gives me some hope is that even the MSM are starting to ask questions about all this stuff–
It’s about friggin’ time!
But at least they’re doing it. And what they’re doing is exposing so many loose threads that the ground work is being laid for more formal investigations that not even Obama and Holder can ignore.
We’re heading in the direction of Doing Something.
Our next big assignment, should we choose to accept it, is to make sure we/they Do It Right.
Bob in HI
I would enjoy a talk with Helgerson right about now.
omit
Apropos of nothing really, but interesting:
Panetta opined before the election that whoever won would be a one term President.
Incidentally, here’s Pelosi’s latest statement via email:
Thanks for posting that. One of the things that has irked me with listening to the Panetta’s and Little’s of the world is their job is to cover the handful of political people at the top of the food chain, not the career civil servants at the bottom and mid levels, most of whom probably do their damnedest to do the most honest work they can. It doesn’t take many people to game the system: those are the liars and the frauds who were rightly called out by Pelosi and Graham.
By the way, since the program is out there and known, now, has anyone asked whether a presidential finding was issued about this? Surely whether or not there was a presidential finding authorizing a program that we now know exists wouldn’t be undisclosable classified information, even if the actual contents of the finding remain classified?
Cheney satd he “…had every reason to believe…” that the “show president” Bush knew about torture. Shouldn’t there be some law against Bush abdicating the presidency to v.p, on say the 1/20/01?
Pelosi “But no letter could change the policy.”
You know what could have stopped them Pelosi.
Impeachment.