GOP Rep: Panetta Told Us Something CIA Hadn’t Told Congress
I just got off the phone with a GOP Congressman who was in that Intel committee meeting where CIA director Leon Panetta allegedly revealed that his agency had misled Congress for years. It was a cryptic conversation, but the Congressman did confirm Panetta revealed something to the members of Congress that the CIA hadn’t divulged to Congress before.
“He brought a matter to our attention that had not been brought to the committee’s attention before,” the Congressman, Mac Thornberry, told me.
The claim could be significant, and coming from a Republican it could go some way towards bolstering certain aspects of the assertions being made by Dems. Late yesterday, the news broke that seven Dems on the Intel committee charged that in closed-door testimony, Panetta revealed that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until last month.
Thornberry would not disclose specifically what Panetta revealed. But he allowed that Panetta had specifically wanted to share new information with the members. “He wanted to discuss a matter that he thought should be brought to our attention,” Thornberry said.
Thornberry cautioned, however, that we shouldn’t conclude Dems had accurately characterized Panetta’s testimony, and questioned the motives of Dems for releasing the info, a move he called a “cheap shot” designed to benefit Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker, of course, got into a big scrape for claiming the CIA lied to her about torture.
However, Thornberry didn’t directly deny the Dems’ characterization of Panetta’s testimony, either. Asked directly if the Dems’ claim was accurate, Thornberry at first said he didn’t remember. When pressed, he then said it was not his “impression” that Panetta said what Dems claimed.
Separately, one of the Dem Reps present at the meeting told HuffPo’s Sam Stein that when Panetta shared his info with the committee, everyone was stunned, “even Republicans.” Time to ask more questions of the Republicans on the committee.
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Yeah I was just reading this at HuffPo – where you are once again getting props for your Sarah Palin work. You know what the rumor is about this, right? A secret Cheney Assassination Squad.
Nothing would surprise me coming from Dick Cheney’s office.
Just saw him on Hardball with Lawrence O’Donnell… I caught the tail end of it, but hopefully you were watching and can fill us in Greg…
Tena –
Another GOP Congressman tells Spencer Ackerman it wasn’t about torture…
http://washingtonindependent.com/50281/isinball-panetta-wasnt-talking-about-torture
Greg – O my god – no wonder Cheney emerged from his undisclosed location and became guest of the week there for awhile. No wonder he was described by a friend as “depressed and scared.”
He is honest to god afraid he’s going to be prosecuted. That link gave me goosebumps, Greg.
Greg
One of the things that is being tossed around is that they were briefed on the assassination ring that Cheney supposedly had at his disposal.
Also Thornberry was just on Hardball trying his best to spin it away and claim he couldn’t recall but when L O’Donnell pressed him he had to admit that it WAS something that should be investigated. As a matter of fact he kind of unwillingly supported Pelosi’s assertion that they get lied to “all the time” because he said over and over that this wasn’t necessarily an anomoly and that several times they are briefed well after something goes down.
So basically this “revelation” provides no cover for Pelosi and her claims about the CIA’s briefings regarding EITs at all . . . And Reyes’ calls for an “investigation” have nothing to do with Pelosi’s claims about the CIA lying to her about waterboarding. No wonder the Dems actions here have been described as bizarre – trying to use an unrelated revelation about an entirely different program as some sort of defense for Pelosi’s claims surrounding EIT briefing(s). Talk about playing politics with national security . . .
“On December 4, 1981, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333 on
“United States Intelligence Activities.” Section 2.11 of the order provides: “Prohibition on
Assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government
shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Section 2.12 of the order prohibits
indirect participation in activities prohibited by the order, stating: “Indirect participation.
No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to
undertake activities forbidden by this Order.” E.O. 12333 is still in force.”
And sbj -= nice attempt at a straw man but we aren’t talking about Nancy Pelosi and what she knew. We’re talking about Dick Cheney and what he DID.
So far only Republican @sshat Thornberry and concern troll sbj have even brought up Nancy Pelosi. That should tell you something.
Oh you guys are rich. “No one is talking about Pelosi” – except . . . hmmm . . I don’t know . . . maybe . . . Greg! In his first post on this: “It could support the claim that the CIA misled Congress about torture.” Amongst others, who has made such a claim? Why, none other than Nancy Pelosi!
Who else mentions Pelosi? Why, none other than Sam Stein in the post to which Sargent links! “Nevertheless, the late-evening stories provide a boost to earlier claims from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she was drastically misled by the CIA when it was briefing members about the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques.”
I’m wondering – did you even read the letter the Dems sent – the one which seeks a retraction of a statement made by Panetta IN RESPONSE TO PELOSI’s CHARGES?
I’m not setting up a straw man. You can thank Greg Sargent and Sam Stein and the Dems for all trying to link this “revelation” to a defense of Pelosi’s claims about CIA briefings regarding EITs.
C’mon now!
SG – you’re better than this. Tena – not so much. Jumping the gun a bit on the Cheney assassination squad aren’t we?
“SG – you’re better than this. Tena – not so much. ”
And you are invited to bite me – hard.
Cause you aren’t better than anything – you’ll use any tactic to try to change the subject.
No one charged Cheney with anything – the rumor is public now – it’s all over the place. And if the CIA misled Congress on something Cheney was doing, what makes you think the CIA didn’t mislead Congress on something else?
I’m glad we were formulating policy based on the movie Swordfish.
Catnip for Tena and other commenters …. we’re getting close to installing THREADED COMMENTS:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/happy-hour-roundup-43/
@tena: Get real! The Dems/Sargent/Stein tried to use the “revelation” as a means to defend Pelosi – the proof is in the darn letter that the Dems today revealed, it’s in Stein’s article, it’s in Sargent’s first post. They all jumped the gun and tried to use a revelation about an entirely unrelated different program as some sort of defense for Pelosi’s claims surrounding EIT briefing(s). You can’t get around that.
And I’ll NOT bite you – I don’t know where you’ve been!
sbj: go ahead and bite tena, she has only been to the best of places, a little ship called REALITY….
Or is that too much of a red pill for you….
oh come on … the sky won’t fall if these morons give us a basic hint at what is at stake. You don’t have to tell us details or anything, but this stuff is lame. It also will probably come out somehow anyway.
The people I really feel for are the CIA career professionals who must deal with politicians. Politicians fit right in with used car sales people when it comes to trust. How do you trust a bunch of self centered, narcissistic trolls with national security information that they are likely to leak if it suits their politics? I don’t envy them and wonder how we can get the talent we really need in our intelligience services.
I think that he specified that JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) accountability was direct to Cheney’s Office and to nobody else within the Bush Administration.
But, that Cheney could have operated domestically singed some eyebrows. Sy Hersh had it, but would only allude to extraordinary overreaching. We were, and may still be, three hairs away from a coup d’etat. Why else would Obama let Cheney rave on – and why else would Obama and Holder still be playing at protecting BushCo from prosecution under Geneva?
In 2007 Pakistani Intelligence traced the source of much of terror in Pakistan to a terrorist camp in Helmand province of Afghanistan. The camp was run by two Brits, Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson. Both of these British spooks were ostensibly working for humanitarian organizations like Oxfam. Semple was Council of the EU, Deputy Representative in Afghanistan and Patterson was “UN diplomat” as well as friend of General Stanikzai. Following this extra ordinary intelligence work by ISI, Karzai of Afghanistan and high officials in Musharraf government exchanged visits which eventually resulted in the arrest and expulsion of Patterson and Semple from Afghanistan.
In December of 2007 Guardian and Independent published stories that were clearly designed to muddle the facts and divert attention away from the real story. The real story was that these training camps were to create the Tehreek-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TMP) or Pakistani Taliban; but why?
A key factor in Bush administration’s Afghan policy was to get Pakistan to make the war against Taliban its own war and not consider it as an American war that can be used to further Pakistan’s goals. By creating Pakistani Taliban US and Brits would be able to pit Pakistan’s military against the Taliban in general and eventually against the Pushtuns to the extent that Pakistani military could be used to do the fighting in Afghanistan. Furthermore, a side benefit of this program would be, if the Taliban were to take over some areas in Pakistan and a part of the capital, then this would provide a sufficient basis for the US to bomb Pakistani nuclear installations and cease their nuclear weapons. There were serious war plans and military exercises conducted by US forces for this scenario. However, unexpected competence of the Pakistani intelligence and ability of the Musharraf government to convince Karzai to through the two Brits out, put a damper on the CIA-MI5 plan. This kind of policy is typical of Bush administration: grandiose, fuzzy and inconsiderate of human life. I think it is the details of this plan that Panetta has uncovered and it may be the reason why Brits are generally unhappy with Obama administration.
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