Video of her latest story below, where she accuses the CIA of "misleading" congress in 2002.... of course the other members of the committees that were briefed were told the truth, but for some reason, in her memory, she was misled.
Fascinating to watch her, as Dana Milbank from Washington Post puts it, "backtracking while walking sideways."
Another video below of Charles Krauthammer discussing how Pelosi just declared war on the CIA and how they have the power, with selective leaks, to destroy her using her own lies.
Dan Balz, from Washington Post also weighs in:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes in the growing debate over the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker's credibility.
Pelosi's performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.
Pelosi finally admitted that in 2003, she was informed, but the question and controversy stems from her denial of a briefing, which included Pelosi and Porter Goss, saying she was not informed that EIT's (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques)were being used at the time.
This shot of the record contradicts her claims.
It is the first one on that page and clearly states what Pelosi was briefed on.
Porter Goss, who was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004, and attended that first meeting with Pelosi, has this to say, via the Washington Post:
Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.
A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.
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. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.
Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:
-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.
-- We understood what the CIA was doing.
-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.
-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.
-- 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.
He has more to say, so be sure to read his whole statement. He was there, he was a member of the committee, and his recollection matches the the briefing record, where Pelosi's lies do not.
Game. Set. Match.
Madam Speaker needs to either step down or be removed because she has absolutely no credibility left and Steny Hoyer, her second in command and the House Majority Leader, has a much better reputation and his credibility is still intact.
More from NYT:
The issue is emerging as one of the toughest tests of Ms. Pelosi’s tenure, as she finds herself fending off accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans for criticizing the interrogation methods, even though she had known about them, and from liberal critics who say that she should have raised the alarm earlier if she knew what was transpiring.
In her roles as both Democratic leader after 2004 and then speaker after Democrats won control of the House in 2006, Ms. Pelosi has been an outspoken critic of the administration’s treatment of detainees, saying the specter of torture had damaged the nation’s reputation and put military forces at risk.
But it was not until late 2007 that it was disclosed that, as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Ms. Pelosi had been briefed to some degree on the interrogation methods.
Ms. Pelosi was present at a C.I.A. briefing in September 2002 that a recently released C.I.A. account says included discussion of techniques that “had been used” against a terrorism suspect.
The CIA's response to the latest "story" Pelosi is telling comes in the form of a statement by George Little, a CIA spokesman:
"The language in the chart — ‘a description of the particular EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed’ — is true to the language in the agency’s records."
I am giving the last word to Le-gal In-sure-rec-tion:
The Democrats wished hard for an investigation into waterboarding and other interrogation methods. They may have wished too hard, because they are about to get what they wished for, with no way out.
Start popping your popcorn folks, the movie is far from over.
(Side note- Any bets on whether Barack Obama is regretting his brilliant decision to release partial memos on legal opinions, opening up this whole can of worms??)
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