May 14 2009
Truth Commission’s First Victim: Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Below is the disastrous Pelosi press briefing where her speakership may have possibly come to an ugly end. In this briefing she first tries to claim to shore up her ridiculous claim she was not informed (directly or by staff attending direct briefings) that water boarding and other enhanced interrogation methods had been used on three (yep, only three) al Qaeda members with knowledge that stopped serious 9-11 attacks on this nation.Â
As I have note many times before (here, here, here and here) this was the wrong fight to pick for Pelosi and the far left. The CIA has records on who was briefed on what. And so does Nancy Pelosi. In the briefing she is clearly in trouble and admits to things that put the lie to her claims she was not informed and did not object at the time.
She admits her staff were briefed in her place. She admits her staff notified her of the water boarding notifications (she tries to distinguish between being ‘directly’ informed and her staff being informed on her behalf and informing her, as is their job).Â
In a lame attempt to hide her admissions of lying, she tries to charge the CIA with a serious crime: lying to Congress. It is also a crime to make a false charge in order to cover up a one’s acts. By making the charge the CIA lied she has opened herself up to proving this charge. She has opened the door to a full investigation.
If the Speaker of the House charges agents of the federal government of lying it carries weight and causes actions to be taken. It is not something that can be ignored. There now must be a full investigation, and the Speaker’s files are fair game for investigators to prove the charges or prove the CIA is innocent. The CIA has files, other congressional members and staff have files – all have differing record of what happened.
And Pelosi admits here her staff told her water boarding had been used – which makes her previous claims finely crafted, lawyer reviewed lies.
And if the CIA is innocent, and Speaker Pelosi knew that when she made the criminal charges, she will be fired and should be brought up on the felony crime of making false charges against others.
Her days are now numbered. Bring on the investigation of CIA crimes and let the chips fall where they may. We now will get to ‘the truth’.
Addendum: As has been noted a couple of times, the CIA gets NO benefit from lying to Congress. Their legal cover requires them to tell Congress, and if Congress decides to stop the interrogations and risk another attack they take the political and legal hits. There is no scenario which makes sense in reality (forget liberal fantasy land) where the CIA would mislead.
Pelosi wants the CIA records made public – bad  move. That means she now has to make her files public and her staff is now open to questioning. And I doubt they will commit perjury for her.
2nd Addendum: I also need to note that Pelosi admits her goal was to stop the interrogations (and therefore allow attacks to happen on American soil) by changing the control in DC from GOP to Democrat. She has openly confirmed the Democrats are more interested in protecting terrorists with knowledge of attacks on the US over US citizens in the cross hairs of these animals. She has openly confirmed democrats were the choice if you wanted to risk attack.
She openly confirmed democrats are reducing our security from attack by telling al Qaeda openly we will not use enhanced interrogation on them. If they can withstand stern questions, their plans are safe, their attacks can go as planned.Â
What a dunce! When (not if) another attack comes against America and Americans, Pelosi has just admitted she and the democrats allowed it to happen by letting down our guard. I wonder if all Dems are ready to step up to that new party plank? Since she has pushed torture victim relief – and we know only 3 people were ever water boarded – does that mean she is expecting the master mind of 9-11, who had knowledge of the 2n 9-11 style attack on LA, to be beneficiaries of her victimhood work?
3rd Addendum: Pelosi was going to her notes because she had legally tested her statement and knew she was going to walk a thin line. I realize where her finely crafted wording gave her some legal wiggle room – which will do her no good with the media which now realizes they were lied to.
Pelosi states over and over again that the CIA briefing claimed water boarding ‘was not being‘ performed. Present tense. Here we get back to Clinton and what ‘the meaning of ‘is’ is. What about past tense? Â Dana Bash (or someone) needs to ask the question: did the CIA brief you and Congress that water boarding HAD been used, not that it was currently (at the time of the briefing) being used. Pelosi will have to answer ‘yes’, the CIA did say it HAD been used on one al Qaeda detainee. Then it is bye-bye speakership.
4th Addendum: Ed Morrissey thinks Pelosi has raised the ante on the CIA, daring them to leak some more. Given they now face criminal charges, or the Speaker must step down, that was a dumb bet. The house (CIA) holds all the cards.
This is what happens when idiots accuse the President of the United States of being a criminal. The people on the left believe their lies and then want to do something about it. Nancy believed that the truth would never come to light, as the truth was highly classified and Bush being the person he is, would never declassify the material, even to protect himself.
The Dems and Obama based a whole campaign on “Bush Lied”, he is an evil person who took this country to war, had the CIA lie for him, look what he did in the name of National Security, and we aren’t any safer. The big problem is that the dems lied, millions believed their lies, and now the CIA is going to put the story straight. I don’t think it sits well with the CIA to be called liars. Let the fun begin!
The schaedenfruede here is several levels deep!
First, the Democrats have been either encouraging or (at the very least) turning a blind eye to the CIA’s very political leaks over the last six years.
Second, the Democrats played to the whole Enhanced Interrogation is Torture meme as presented by their own radical fringe.
Third, Speaker Pelosi promised the most ethical Congress ever.
Now those three elements combine into a perfect storm of controversy that even the Press which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party must take notice of.
Heh!
Pass the popcorn and this couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.
Seriously, I keep asking myself why would she be so stupid as to basically set her self up for an investigation? As we all know the CIA will defend itself (Plame?), and she dared them to do just that!
What we are witnessing is the pop of the liberal world view bubble. The bubble liberals have immersed themselves in. They talk to each other (Journolist), they hang out together, the media of television and Hollywood slants in their favor and regurgitate their world view. Bubble pop meet reality. It was so obvious that even the MSM reporters at the new conference of here where asking questions of the Speaker like she was a Republican. Maybe she just thought with all of the levers of power in her/Democrat hands she could diktat reality and eliminate her enemies/Republicans once and for all. The arrogance is astounding if true.
As Rush said today, the truth will prevail. So it appears that Dick Cheney has had a great effect by fighting back. Amazing what can happen when the truth is told against lies. I wished Bush would have learned this lesson many years ago and maybe this nonsense wouldn’t have gotten as far as it has.
Rodney, great point… the Dems have conveniently turned the other way when there were all these leaks about Bush and co. the last few years. Now they are upset.
Watching Pelosi’s news conference on Fox it reminds me of Clinton’s conference denying relations with Lewinski. It reminds me also of the video I’ve seen of Nixon “I am not a crook.” Looks like she’s on the right track!
PH I disagree that Bush should have done anything.
First, no matter what he said, MSM and the Dems would have turned it around to make him the bad guy.
Secondly, he would never have disclosed EIT’s because he thought he might need them again. That is until they were put into the paper.
Bush had to do things that no other President has had to do since WWII. I think he was extremely thoughtful, on every level.
Is there a dem or a journalist that believes anything that I’ve said? I don’t think so. So why should he, President Bush, say anything?
kathie, I see your point and I think you make good points in that the “deck was stacked’ against BUSH so why clutter the cloud.
But as The Representative of the U.S., Bush had an obligation to make sure that lies do not take hold in the court of American public or world opinion. All I am saying is if someone tells a lie on you then you have an obligation to attempt to correct that lie. Bush let too much of it just slide without comment. Always respond if feebly like Nan today.
ph, if you think back, the majority of the lies told about Bush involve classified information. Leaked by anonymous sources to the news papers. The only way to fight against it is to declassify. Can you see Bush doing that? These were planned attacks, by Rockefeller. His memo is somewhere, telling methodically how he was going to destroy Bush. Well it worked for awhile. Now I think maybe with Cheney speaking out, we will see more dems looking like liars and not Bush.
ph, if you think back, the majority of the lies told about Bush involve classified information. Leaked by anonymous sources to the news papers. The only way to fight against it is to declassify. Can you see Bush doing that? These were planned attacks, by Rockefeller. His memo is somewhere, telling methodically how he was going to destroy Bush. Well it worked for awhile. Now I think maybe with Cheney speaking out, we will see more dems looking like liars and not Bush.
kathie, I agree.
As Cheney speaks out and if BO releases classified information then they/Bush will be vindicated. Fighting back works.
ph…fighting back works, but look how Cheney is being vilified. It doesn’t matter now because he doesn’t have to govern and protect himself, retirement has some advantages.
ph2ll:
I heard Liz Cheney say something to the effect that a lot of people in the Bush administration, and I took that to mean Bush as well were listening to lawyers. Even now Holder is talking about cooperating with some Spanish judge to go after Bush.
I think Bush was too concerned with what he would have to say in public and what the effect of that might have on his presidency. Unlike Obama, he is a responsible person.
Pelosi just walked right into this. It makes me wonder if she is stupid or somethint. Why would the CIA lie about this? They have nothing to gain.
Dear Mr. Strata,
Will Nancy Pelosi be prosecuted? I think that your system needs
the chief prosecutor of Washington DC to file charges, but he is
a democrat too and appointed by Mr. Obama. He might do nada?
I think you cannot force the prosecutor to prosecute? Something like
happend here in England, where the government stopped prosecuting
a big defence company over charges of corruption in it’s deals with
the Saudi Arabia. Some people were really mad and went to court but
the court said it is for the government (they call it the Crown Prosecution
Service) to decide who they prosecute. And that is that. Maybe it
is different in the USA?
It is also remarkable that in just as a few days, Mr. Obama changes
his orders about the photos and keeps them back and today in the
news he is saying he will let there be military trials for the prisoners
in the Guantanamo Bay jail. His Left friends will be very angry.
I cannot prove but I suspect someone, and I remember your famous
movie, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Maybe someday we
will know but not tomorrow.
I heard an interesting comment this morning. One of the reasons that aides are sent to briefings is so that the congressman can deny that they were briefed. Isn’t this the situation with Nancy. But then you have to ask, why on such an important issue, would the congressman not want to be counted as present? I guess this is an inside the belt way thing. They all do it.
She continues to violate the first of rule of digging your self into a hole, namely she continues to dig and her hole keeps getting bigger.
AJ, wrong anti, want to guess which one you should you use?
A) Auntie
B) Ante
🙂
This looks like it may become an out and out Dem strategy and turn into a very real DEM/CIA war:
Graham: CIA Gave Me False Information About Interrogation Briefings
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/14/graham-cia-gave-me-false_n_203683.html
That reminds me of something else I sense. If the Dems go this route of “The CIA lied”/”The CIA mislead” and it is later proven wrong…..
will it bring back memories of “Bush lied”/”Bush mislead”??? And, might that change some public perspectives in retrospect on what that Dem chant was really all about? Just wondering.
Frogg……it’s too delicious to contemplate. But the truth does seem to raise to the top.
Most excellent article:
The Torture Debate, continued (by Charles Krauthammer)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051403603.html
DEMS: CIA Briefers May Have Broken the Law
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22531.html