Yet more evidence that, despite Pelosi’s claim that she knew the Bush Administration thought it was legal but didn’t know it would be used, Madame Speaker knew very well that terror suspects were being waterboarded in U.S. custody. It’s a report from the Director of National Intelligence and released to ABC News:
The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
The meeting is described as a “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”
EITs stand for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a classification of special interrogation tactics that includes waterboarding…
Brendan Daly, a Pelosi spokesman, said Pelosi’s recollection of the meeting is different than the way it is described in the report from the DNI’s office.
“The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used,” Daly said.
Daly pointed out that the report backs up Pelosi’s contention that she was briefed only once on “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
And, according to the DNI report, Pelosi wasn’t the only Democrat who knew what was going on. Congressional members on both sides of the aisle were briefed on the practices and remained silent. Suddenly the lefty members were outraged – outraged! – when the interrogations went public and there were political points to be scored.
This latest report actually backs up other previously-released evidence of Pelosi’s knowledge. A 2007 Washington Post report stated that the California Congresswoman was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s “blacksites”, while former CIA Director Porter Goss wrote an editorial last week that explained how she received the same briefings he did on the matter.
Grandma Pelosi knew much more than she’s letting on.
More: Michelle Malkin.
by Stephan Tawney on Thu, May 7, 2009