Posted on 05/13/2009 10:17:02 AM PDT by jazusamo
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), an influential Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has threatened to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) before the Senate investigation of abusive interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration.
“I don’t want to retry Nancy Pelosi, that’s not my goal but if you’re going to accuse these people in the Bush administration of being evil and committing a crime, then if she was told about [interrogation tactics] I want to know what she was told,” Graham said during a break in a hearing on Bush-era interrogation practices.
Graham spoke to reporters during a Judiciary subcommittee hearing entitled “What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, convened the hearing.
Liberals have pressed for Democrats to move forward on an inquiry on whether Bush officials violated domestic and international law by torturing terrorist suspects.
Democratic leaders have resisted the rush to investigate, however, amidst questions of whether Democratic leaders such as Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) were briefed and acquiesced to such techniques.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), another leading Republican on the issue of torture, has said that Pelosi should have objected to interrogation practices when briefed on them when she served as member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a former member of the Intelligence Committee who sits on Judiciary, appeared briefly to remind colleagues that lawmakers have few options to discuss or oppose policies they learn of during classified intelligence briefings.
Durbin said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the former chairman and vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believed he had little recourse to oppose the Bush administration practice of conducting warrantless surveillance. Rockefeller authored a hand-written memo stating his opposition to the practice, but the note did not become public until much later.
Pelosi received a briefing on interrogation by CIA officials when she served as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence panel in 2002 but she has asserted that she was never told that waterboarding and other harsh practices were used, only that intelligence officials thought them legal.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, however, has since released information calling Pelosi’s assertion into question. A DNI chart released earlier this month asserting that Pelosi received a briefing in September of 2002 where she was given a description of interrogation methods used on a suspected terrorist prisoner.
Pelosi has claimed a different recollection of the briefing.
“Trying to understand what she was told is almost impossible, her story changes almost every day,” said Graham.
Whitehouse said Wednesday’s session was the first of what he hoped would be several Judiciary hearings on torture. Those other sessions have yet to be scheduled.
JUST DO IT!
GOP ‘onions’ are rare.
Did Lindsey get some balls lateley?!
Graham has a spine? Who knew??
“Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), an influential Republican member”
In his own mind, maybe. He’s the GOP version of the “Breck Girl”.
her story changes almost every day,sounds like the entire democrat party.
Kinda hard to believe but there it is.
Do it.. And while they are at it, keep bringing up corruption probes. Everytime the RATS kill the bill, bring up what Pelosi knew and when did she know it.
We have to keep the pressure on them. As long as they have room to conduct policy, we will be one step closer to being totally screwed.
You go. Lindsey...you just pitch a big, fat RINO hissy fit.
I’m sure it will be spectacular. Maybe Juan can jump up and down while you are on your back flopping on the ground.
Go Goober go. Just keep “Scottish Law” Spector away from the procedings. (He has a crush on the “Liar-Of-The-House”).
I would rather keep Nancy right where she is, lest she be replaced by someone who'd actually be a competent and capable Speaker - say like Steney Hoyer. Who knows what Stoyer as Speaker, and his puppet masters in the White House could cook up.
No kidding. This is just more empty rhetoric from the ball-less GOP.
He threatened, did not say he would actually do it.
Stop talking about it and do it. I’ll believe it when I see it. I do think the Republicans are getting mad.
You make a valid point, Hoyer has brains.
Call me cynical, but I’ll believe it when I see her ugly face squirming in the chair answering questions under oath.
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