Boehner Seeks Commission on Pelosi CIA Allegations

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) is proposing a bi-partisan commission to investigate whether Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have made false accusations to the CIA or that the Agency has effectively lied to Congress. Boehner said that Pelosi must either produce evidence such as classified documents to support her allegations or make a public apology to the Agency.

“Her allegations that the CIA had lied to her and that they misled Congress all the time is a very serious charge. Members of both parties, I think, have a responsibility to take this situation seriously including the Speaker herself,” said Boehner, adding that “the Speaker had a full week to produce evidence to back up her allegations. And frankly, I am disappointing that she has not done so.”

“I would have hoped the Speaker would have come forward by now, and neither put documents out there supporting her claims or retract her statement and apologize to our Intelligence professionals,” said Boehner.

While this commission still needs the approval of the House, Boehner said that it would lead to the unveiling of top secret documents showing who from Pelosi or the CIA is right.

Boehner added that “we are still in the midst of a war against people who want to end our way of life. And this is where our Intelligence people out on the field play a critical role and they don’t feel like they can do their job, they feel like someone is looking over their shoulders and is going to question every move that they make. It’s going to have a chilling effect.”

Minutes after the press conference ended, the House voted against the setting up of this commission.

Hoyer: Democratic Caucus Supports Pelosi

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

This morning, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) stressed that the Nancy Pelosi-CIA debate should be left behind and that the media should focus on more important subjects. In a press briefing, Hoyer talked mainly about the Pelosi-Debate and what will be dealt by Congress in the coming days in order to recover from the economic crisis.

“I believe the Speaker when she says she wasn’t specifically briefed on the interrogation techniques,” Hoyer said. After the Democrats met last night, Hoyer pointed out that “the caucus is solid” and that “nobody mentioned the subject.”

Responding to the allegations that the CIA misled Congress, Hoyer said that the House was not advised of the specific techniques and that Leon Panetta, the director of the Intelligence Agency, could not speak truthfully because he was not present when the events happened. Additionally, Hoyer claimed that “Republicans and Democrats made it clear they wanted to have good relations with the CIA” but that they needed to keep updated.

Hoyer claimed the attacks made by Republicans on Pelosi are “a Republican tactic to distract the public from what was done” by the previous administration and as long as the story will make the headlines, the Republicans will not stop talking about the controversy.

Bringing an end to a tumultuous week of debates is necessary to tackle legislations that need to be dealt by Congress such as the Credit Card Bill, Energy or health care,Hoyer said. Congress started on a “very fast start”, he added, and it needs to continue in a fast pace in order to contend with the “substantial agenda” ahead.

Hoyer stated that the Democrats remain committed to economic recovery and responded passionately about how the Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights Act “will be on the floor” very soon, possibly before Memorial Day.

Pelosi: The CIA Misled Me And The American People

By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service

The slow revelation of the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency can be likened to a child slowly pulling off a band-aid and crying louder and louder with each hair pulled out of the follicle.

With each removed hair, or revelation in the news, the groans of the American people are only amplified as they want the truth about the CIA’s use of waterboarding and which U.S government officials knew but remained silent.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was briefed by the CIA on interrogation techniques during September 2002, virulently denied that she knew the CIA employed water boarding.

In fact during a press conference this afternoon, she repeatedly answered numerous questions regarding her knowledge of when the CIA employed enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding. She did this after her press secretary yelled out “last question.” Pelosi even answered as she was walked out of the room.

“I am speaking from my own experience, and we were told that it (waterboarding) was not being used,” said Pelosi emphatically.

Admitting that she was briefed by the CIA in September 2002, Pelosi said that the unnamed agent did not tell her that they used waterboarding, and promised her that the CIA would notify her if waterboarding was ever employed.

Pelosi said that the briefing in 2002 was “ incomplete and inaccurate,” as the waterboarding of terrorist and Bin Laden confidant, Abu Zubaydah, had occurred a month earlier.

After trying to clear her own name, Pelosi attempted to shift the blame to the CIA because it had not been forthright with information regarding the agency’s true actions.

“They (the CIA) misrepresented every step of the way, and they don’t want that focus on them, and they have tried to shift the focus on us (Congress),” said Pelosi.

At the same time of her briefing, Pelosi stated that “The Bush Adminstration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

As a result, Pelosi has been a leading advocate in the need for an independent “Truth Commission” that would work “to determine how intelligence was misused, and how controversial and possibly illegal activities, like torture, were authorized within the executive branch.”

However, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the “Truth Commission” a “politically motivated investigation into our intelligence agency.”

Boehner feels that such an investigation is “dangerous and wrong.

But if this investigation does occur, he wants to see all the information presented, including what Pelosi knew, when she knew it and what she did about it.

Additionally, Boehner believes that Pelois’s numerous stories have led to “more questions than answers,” and bluntly questioned if the Democrats were not being truthful themselves.

“When you look at the number of briefings that the Speaker was in and other Democratic members of the House and Senate its pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were, they were well aware that they have been used,” said Boehner.

Pelosi’s statements have only stoked the flames of suspicion, and her calls for a “Truth Commission,” at least according to Boehner, may lead to some unintended and unwanted discoveries.

Pelosi: The CIA Lied

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explains how the CIA has repeatedly lied to the American people, whether in Iraq or in regards to torture, and how they are now trying to shift the blame onto the American people. (0:24)

FBI Agent: Bush Lied On Torture

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News service

Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory agent, confirms that the George W. Bush administration lied on its use of torture in its interrogation
processes.

In 2005, President Bush said that “America does not condone torture”,
a statement that has been put into question following the recent
decision by President Barack Obama to publish four memos which detail
the legal justification used by the Bush administration to justify the
methods employed in the interrogation process led by the CIA.

Chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the
Courts Sheldon Whitehouse said “John Yoo (former official in the Department of Justice) told Esquire Magazine that waterboarding was only done ‘three times’ when public reports now indicate that two detainees were waterboarded 83 and 183 times”.

This revelation has hindered the American reputation abroad, resulting
in a struggle between institutions of the government such as the
intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice on who is to blame
the most for having carried out these seances.

Philip Zelikow, former counselor of the State Department, said that “
Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Department of Justice, along
with the White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, assured the
government’s leaders that the proposed program was lawful.”

Whitehouse said that “We were told that waterboarding was
determined to be legal, but were not told how badly the law was
ignored, bastardized and manipulated by the Department of Justice’s
Office of Legal Counsel, nor were we told how furiously government and military lawyers rejected the defective OLC opinions-but we ignored.”

In parallel, Soufan said that “The interrogation team was a
combination between the FBI and the CIA. All of us had the same
opinion that contradicted with the contractor.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said “I’m also proud of the fact that
the United states of America, when its made mistakes, has not been
afraid to admit these mistakes and learn from them and pledge not to
make the same mistakes again.”