What Pelosi knew about waterboarding, and when!!!!
Pelosi shuts down questions on CIA dispute!!!!!!!!!
Republicans accuse her of stonewalling
In her first news conference since accusing the CIA of lying to her about the use of harsh interrogation techniques, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday refused to answer questions on the controversy, telling reporters only that she stands by her earlier statements.
Flanked by fellow House Democratic leaders, Mrs. Pelosi spent 23 minutes at a pre-recess press briefing recounting the party's accomplishments so far this year, took just five minutes of questions, and declared out-of-bounds any inquiries on her confrontation with the CIA.
"I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this," Mrs. Pelosi said. "What we are doing is staying on our course and not getting distracted from it."
The highly anticipated news briefing came amid Republican calls to investigate Mrs. Pelosi's assertion that the CIA mislead her when she was briefed in September 2002 about so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, which the Obama administration has deemed torture.
House GOP leaders have demanded that she back up her claim or apologize to the intelligence agency, but Democrats voted down a resolution Thursday that would have created a special panel to investigate her charges.
Mrs. Pelosi last week said the CIA lied to her in 2002 by concealing that it had already used enhanced interrogation techniques, and said the agency continues to lie today by mischaracterizing the briefing. She also said the CIA lied in the run-up to the Iraq war.
"They mislead us all the time," she said.
On Friday, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta wrote a memo to his employees defending them and calling for the rhetoric attacking his agency to be toned down.
Mrs. Pelosi issued her own statement afterward saying her accusations were directed at the Bush administration, not at the employees of the CIA.
Boehner wants evidence or an apology from Pelosi
House Minority Leader John Boehner this morning called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to either produce evidence that the CIA lied to Congress or apologize for making such an allegation.
This, of course, is in regards to her comments about the Bush administration misleading her on interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.“Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime, and if the Speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then they should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so that they can be prosecuted," he told CNN's John King in an interview on State of the Union. "If that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world."
Some Republicans, including Rep. Steve King of Iowa and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have called for Mrs. Pelosi to resign as speaker.
Mr. King said he would introduce a resolution when Congress returns calling for Mrs. Pelosi's security clearance to be revoked.
Congress is on a weeklong break next week and Mrs. Pelosi appears to be hoping that scrutiny of her charges will fade as other news - including the global warming debate and a potential Supreme Court nomination announcement - changes the focus in Washington.
At her news conference Friday she and her fellow Democratic leaders went into detail on the upcoming global warming fight and other bills the House has passed this year, but did not address Mrs. Pelosi's CIA charges until a reporter asked her about them.
Mrs. Pelosi flatly refused to say anything more about her charges.
"I won't have anything more to say about it. Another subject?" she responded.
Republicans were not as willing to let the subject drop.
In a statement, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio accused Mrs. Pelosi of "stonewalling."
"She has had more than a week to produce evidence supporting her allegation that the CIA deliberately lied to Congress and does so 'all the time.' She still has not done so, and House Democrats are now stonewalling a bipartisan investigation to determine the facts," Mr. Boehner said.
"Claiming that the CIA engaged in a pattern of deception without either backing it up with evidence or retracting her statement and apologizing is an affront to the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country," he added.
Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Mrs. Pelosi was becoming a political liability to her party.
"Her obsession with the previous administration and her disdain for America's intelligence officials have reduced her to cheerleader status within the far left wing of her party and a distraction to the substantive debate over how to best move our economy forward," Mr. Spain said.
In disparaging the CIA and accusing the agency of lying last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become a "wrecking ball" to the morale of officers risking their lives in the field, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee said Tuesday.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, also told The Washington Times he thinks that President Obama will not be able to keep his promise to close the detention facility for terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January, saying the president has come to realize that other countries won't take the detainees and that the detainees are too dangerous to house in the U.S.
Mr. Hoekstra's comments came as Senate Democrats broke with Mr. Obama over funds to close the detention camp, refusing to bankroll the project until the White House presents a plan for relocating hundreds of terrorism suspects imprisoned there.
Pelosi taking 'wrecking ball' to CIA morale, Hoekstra says
In disparaging the CIA and accusing the agency of lying last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become a "wrecking ball" to the morale of officers risking their lives in the field, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee said Tuesday.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, also told The Washington Times he thinks that President Obama will not be able to keep his promise to close the detention facility for terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January, saying the president has come to realize that other countries won't take the detainees and that the detainees are too dangerous to house in the U.S.
Mr. Hoekstra's comments came as Senate Democrats broke with Mr. Obama over funds to close the detention camp, refusing to bankroll the project until the White House presents a plan for relocating hundreds of terrorism suspects imprisoned there.
In an interview with editors and reporters, Mr. Hoekstra said Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, hasn't done anything illegal that would disqualify her from being speaker, but said Democrats will have to decide whether she is the right person to lead them. Still, he said, from his standpoint, she has endangered the country.
"She has single-handedly become a wrecking ball, a wrecking crew through the morale of the intelligence community," he said. "These are people that have been on the front lines. They have seen their friends die, and they have taken risks to keep America safe, and this speaker has now said you may be prosecuted."
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her at a secret 2002 briefing on the use of harsh interrogations in the war on terror.
CIA records suggest that Pelosi, D-Calif., was told at that time that the Bush administration was using waterboarding — a simulated drowning. Pelosi, however, said on May 14 that spy agency officials specifically informed her at that session that the practice was not used.
The CIA's records on the subject are vague. Here is a brief timeline on the conflicting accounts of what Pelosi knew, and when:
_Sept. 4, 2002: Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and the panel's Republican chairman, former Rep. Porter J. Goss of Florida, are briefed on the use of harsh interrogation methods in the war on terror. CIA records describe the subject of the secret briefing as "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed." The Bush administration acknowledged in 2008 that Zubaydah had been waterboarded, and documents subsequently revealed that the method was used on him at least 82 times in August 2002. Pelosi said on May 14 that briefers at the 2002 meeting told her that the administration had deemed the harsh tactics legal, but that they specifically said that they had not used waterboarding.
_Feb. 5, 2003: Pelosi, now House minority leader, is informed by a top aide who sits in on a secret briefing of Goss and the new senior Democrat on the Intelligence panel, Rep. Jane Harman of California, that the administration has used harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding. She is informed that Harman is lodging a formal written protest of the practice in a letter to the CIA.
_Dec. 9, 2007: Pelosi, now the House speaker, first publicly acknowledges having been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 and learning in 2003 of their use. Responding to a news report that said Pelosi was among top lawmakers who had been briefed in 2002 about waterboarding, she issues a statement saying she had been briefed once in 2002 "on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future," and told that Bush's team "had concluded that the techniques were legal." She also acknowledges learning in 2003 that Harman had been briefed that "the techniques had in fact been employed." She references Harman's letter of objection and says it was "a protest with which I concurred."
_April 23, 2009: Pelosi for the first time directly denies having been told at the 2002 briefing that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques had been used. After the Senate Intelligence Committee releases a timeline showing that key lawmakers in both parties had been briefed at that time about the use of waterboarding on terrorism detainees, Pelosi tells reporters she was not one of them: "We were not — I repeat, were not — told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used," Pelosi said. She says again that she was told then that the administration had concluded the practices were legal.
_May 6, 2009: CIA Director Leon Panetta tells lawmakers in a letter to the Intelligence Committee that he can't vouch for the accuracy of the CIA records that describe what Pelosi and other lawmakers were told about enhanced interrogation techniques. It's up to the Intelligence Committee to "determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened," he writes.
_May 7, 2009: Pelosi's spokesman says she stands by her account of the 2002 briefing, and for the first time says that at that session Pelosi was told specifically that waterboarding had not been used. "The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said spokesman Brendan Daly.
_May 14, 2009: Pelosi herself says for the first time that she was specifically told in 2002 that waterboarding had not been used, and accuses the CIA of misleading her and the Congress. She also confirms that she learned of its use in February 2003. CIA Spokesman George Little says the CIA's description of Pelosi's briefing was "true to the language in the agency's records," adding, "It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress."
_May 15, 2009: Panetta tells CIA employees in a message that agency records show CIA officers briefed lawmakers truthfully in 2002 on methods of interrogating terrorism suspects, but it is up to Congress to reach its own conclusions about what happened. "Let me be clear. It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress," Panetta writes.
_May 21, 2009: The House rejects a Republican resolution to create a bipartisan panel to investigate Pelosi's assertion that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used. Two Republicans, Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina join Democrats in voting 252-172 to block the measure.
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