Internal Agency Probe: CIA Misleads Congress

Does the CIA mislead congress? According the CIA's internal Inspector General, yes. This is from the Washington Post:

"An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case."

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Specter Chimes in on CIA "Honesty"

Long-time republican, now turned Democrat, Senator Arlen Specter has joined the chorus of congressmen and legislators questioning the "honesty" of the CIA. This is from The Hill:

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to -- I was about to say candid, that's too mild -- to honesty."

After a while, it can't be denied any longer that the CIA has a reputation for being less than truthful.

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CIA Already Being Probed for Possible Lying

Pelosi isn't the only one in the House who suspects the CIA of lying. According to this report in Muskegon News, then ranking republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, suggested that the CIA may be covering up and even lying to Congress:

"We need to follow up as aggressively as we can," Hoekstra said. "We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress." [- then Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R)]

Talking Points Memo's Zachary Roth has more on the story.

As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue -- and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi's fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.

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Who's Lying?

In a Washington Post Op-Ed piece, Porter Goss expresses amazement that Pelosi would claim waterboarding was not mentioned in the 2002 briefing the two of them received from the CIA regarding interrogation of detainees. This bears some examination.

"Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned."

I've yet to see where Speaker Pelosi made such a claim.

Furthermore, the CIA has released a table which summarizes the dates of briefings, subject of the briefings, and the names of those in attendance. The table shows that Pelosi was briefed in 2002, but the subject-entry for that briefing makes no mention of waterboarding. The subject-entry for a February, 2003 briefing NOT attended by Pelosi, does specifically mention "the waterboard." If waterboarding was discussed in the 2002, briefing, why was it not mentioned in the table summarizing the briefing subjects as it was for the February 2003 briefing? So far, the evidence favors Pelosi. See the CIA document here.

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