Pelosi Caught Lying Yet Again
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a way that only Democrats can, continues to mangle the truth into whatever she wants it to be. Earlier when asked about her knowledge of "enhanced interrogation techniques," she said, "I was briefed on interrogation techniques the [Bush] administration was considering using in the future. The administration advised that legal counsel for both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal."
However, a recently released CIA memo shows that she was fully briefed on September 4, 2004, as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT), including specific information describing the techniques that had been employed to get information from the captured terrorist Abu Zabaydah. In fact the document shows that Nancy Pelosi (D) and Porter Goss (R) were the first two representatives ever briefed on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Most recently, her office has released a statement that says she was never briefed that waterboarding had been used, only that it might be used in the future and that the Bush administration had determined it to be legal. "At this point, she appears to be trying to draw a distinction without a difference, " said one pundit.
Porter Goss (R), and former Director of the CIA, who attended the briefing at the same time as Pelosi, has said:
On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.
I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately — to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president’s national security adviser — and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.
