Did The CIA Lie to Nancy Pelosi?

According to a report yesterday from The Hill, Nancy Pelosi's claim that she and other congressmen/women were mislead on multiple occasions by the CIA could be bolstered by an ongoing House Intelligence Committee investigation. The investigation was spurred by the new CIA Director Leon Panetta's admission that several CIA officials didn't notify congress about a program to assassinate al Qaeda leaders. Nancy Pelosi has been under constant assault from Republicans since she made the claim in May that: "We were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used... They [the CIA] misled us all the time".

Now, House Intelligence subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) is saying that the Panetta admission is just one of five instances of a critical breakdown in communications between the CIA and congress. Said Schakowsy:

There have been many instances where we’ve come to a committee hearing, after having read in the paper of something that should have been notified to us, where it’s followed up my mea culpas by the intelligence community... And examples where the committee actually has been lied to.

Apparently, the instances of omission, misleading and outright lying to congress are not limited to torture techniques. Of further interest is that Dick Cheney apparently ordered the CIA not to notify congress about the al Queda assassination program and potentially other programs.

Conspiracy to deceive congress is criminal. I hope that serious investigation into the CIA and Dick Cheney comes of this, though I'm not holding my breath. Expect more from this fascinating story as the House Intelligence subcommittee's investigation continues. In the meantime, enjoy this lovely clip of "Fox and Friends" getting the story on Nancy Pelosi's May assertion really, really wrong:



Got to love the torture apologia coming out of the guest's mouth. "We were all scared after 9/11" is the worst excuse out there. And then he defends Bush's torture record by asserting that Bush won in a "relative landslide" in 2004 (Reminder: these were the election results. Not impressive for an incumbent.). I suppose any electoral victory could be called a landslide in comparison to the 2000 election, but that's just intellectually dishonest. Then again, it's "Fox & Friends"