Nancy Pelosi: I Was Briefed on NSA Program (She Signed Off On It)
Newsmax ^ | Dec. 18, 2005
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi confessed late Saturday that she signed off on President Bush's decision to have a top intelligence agency conduct "unspecified activities" to gather intelligence on possible terrorists operating inside the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
"I was advised of President Bush's decision to provide authority to the National Security Agency to conduct unspecified activities shortly after he made it and have been provided with updates on several occasions," Pelosi admitted.
The San Francisco Democrat claimed she expressed "strong concerns" about the "unspecified activities" at the time, but offered no evidence to that effect.
Pelosi declined to explain why she didn't make public her concerns about the authorization, which Democrats now say was an outrageous abuse of civil rights.
Instead, Pelosi admitted keeping silent about the "unspecified activities" even though she now believes they may have been illegal, saying Bush's acknowledgment of the NSA program on Saturday "raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful."
On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also admitted he kept silent about the controversial program, even though he was briefed on its existence "a couple of months ago."
Still, he insisted that it made no difference that Democratic congressional leaders knew about the NSA program, telling Fox News Sunday: "This is something that's [the responsibility of] the president and the vice president and there's no way he can pass the buck."
I guess that stupid Bush fooled her again.
Leno once mentioned that if the man is a stupid as the dems portray him, how can they continually whine that Bush fooled them with pre-Iraq itelligence...and now this NSA non-issue?
Who's the stupid one?
Has anyone considered that if the Dims capture the House and Pelosi becomes speaker that she would be in the Presidential line of succession? I think that would be a great campaign ad for 2006. "Vote Democrat and This could be your Commander-in Chief" That would scare the bejesus out of me.
It seems to me that Reid is passing the buck on Congressional Oversight. What good does it do to be outraged about it now if he (and Pelosi) thought it was wrong then? Where was the oversight then? Why are they only calling for probes now that the NYT has published the story?
-PJ