Posted on 05/14/2009 4:50:51 PM PDT by library user
I used to be a prosecutor (though I didn't play one on TV), so maybe it's old habit, but I thought it might be useful to look at the governing statute.
As I understand it from one of her multiple versions of events — which Madame Speaker seems to think are somehow exculpatory — she claims that the CIA told her it was planning to use waterboarding but hadn't yet done so. As Karl Rove puts it in his excellent Wall Street Journal column today:
In December 2007, Mrs. Pelosi admitted that she attended the briefing, but she wouldn't comment for the record about precisely what she was told. At the time the Washington Post spoke with a "congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter" and summarized that person's comments this way: "The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage — they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice — and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."
When questions were raised last month about these statements, Mrs. Pelosi insisted at a news conference that "We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used." Mrs. Pelosi also claimed that the CIA "did not tell us they were using that, flat out. And any, any contention to the contrary is simply not true." She had earlier said on TV, "I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogations were being used."
In today's news accounts, Pelosi ups the ante big-time by alleging that, in 2002, she was "told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," and, therefore, that the agency is lying when it claims to have told her it was. But — though I acknowledge she is confusing and at times incoherent — Pelosi does not appear to disclaim knowledge that waterboarding was at least in the CIA's gameplan. And, indeed, she now says she learned waterboarding was being used from other lawmakers who attended other briefings in the ensuing months.
Now, back to the torture statute. I won't rehash the now familiar provisions that explain what torture is. But I do want to focus our attention on a prong of the torture statute, Section 2340A(c), that hasn't gotten much notice to this point:
Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
So I ask myself, "Self, what difference does it make whether Speaker Pelosi knew the CIA was waterboarding suspects or merely knew the CIA was planning to use waterboarding?" Answer: None.
Unless a victim is killed by torture such that the death penalty comes into play (which is not alleged here), American law regards conspiracy to commit torture as something exactly as serious, punished exactly as severely, as actual torture. As it happens, I don't think waterboarding as administered by the CIA was torture. But Pelosi says she does. If that's where you're coming from, how do you get off the hook by saying you only knew about a plan to torture but not actual torture?
To establish torture conspiracy, a prosecutor wouldn't even have to prove an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You just need to show that two or more people agreed to commit the prohibited act. Here, though, by her own account (or at least one of her own accounts), Pelosi knew the CIA was planning to use waterboarding and later learned it was actually being done. So, if Pelosi was told — as the CIA says she was — that waterboarding was being used, that's another nail in the coffin. But for a prosecutor, it's just gravy — not at all necessary to the case. As Pelosi herself tells it, she was aware of a conspiracy to torture — which is just as significant under the law as torture itself — and she did nothing about it.
Finally, on the "did nothing about it" score, the lamest part of Pelosi's defense is the claim that she didn't need to register her dissent because she agreed with Rep. Jane Harman's letter, purportedly "objecting to" the enhanced interrogation tactics. Here's Harman's letter. It contains no objection whatsoever to the tactics.
Harman wanted clarification that President Bush approved and authorized the tactics — which is understandable: if congressional leaders were being asked to stick their necks out here, they obviously wanted to make sure President Bush's neck was exposed too, and just in terms of good government it made sense to ask for assurance that the commander-in-chief was running the show. The only objection laid out in the Harman letter was to the notion of the CIA destroying a tape, not to the tactics recorded on the tape. The most sensible interpretation of that is that Harman (a) was understandably concerned about obstruction of justice claims down the road, and (b) thought any recording would be a good defense for the CIA and those briefed on the program if there were a later allegation that the CIA tortured the detainees. But, again, the letter evinces no protest about waterboarding or other harsh interrogation tactics.
In any event, it seems to me that the Speaker is cooked even on her own version(s) of what happened here.
A BTT. It’s an awfully good question, actually. I’m going to pop some popcorn while I wait for Nance’s next version of the truth.
She’ll get a pass, in the end.
ML/NJ
First mentally retarded Speaker of the House.
Version 6.0 should be up anyday now.
I'm waiting to view the entertaining legal gerrymandering that will be foisted on us to implicate the others while leaving Pelosi in the clear.
Yes, but cognitive dissonance keeps her and many other liberal fools from seeing this.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, from March 20 to May 1, 2003, was spearheaded by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Spain, Poland and Denmark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
She's delusional...
She has proven herself not only venal, but as dumb as a stump! This woman is STUPID!
Fox’s Carl Cameron summed it up best after Nancy’s disastrous presser earlier today (where she actually said the CIA lied to her):
“Republicans are blood-thirsty-—they believe they can really messup Pelosi on this one.”
Even for liberal democrats she's the bottom of the barrel - she's literally staggeringly stupid and staggeringly malicious. But she's from the S.F. Bay Area, where she blends right in.
Knee cap her. :-)
The two Californians hate each other----would not be surprised if Harman is stirring the pot.....getting back at Nancy for the AIPAC scandal.
Here's an extremely important and well-reported story from CQ's Jeff Stein, which involves allegations of major corruption and serious criminal activity on the part of California Democratic Rep. Jane Harman. She has a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, and was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of AIPAC.
POSTSCRIPT And then there's the focus on Rahm Emanuel's war-crimes-protecting proclamation that Obama's desire for immunity extends beyond CIA officers perpetrating torture to the "policy makers" who ordered it (hard-core Obama loyalists explain how international treaties are irrelevant, and that "some" war criminals need not be held accountable).
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/20/harman/index.html
FR POSTED 04/21/2009 3:34:20 AM PDT by FromLori
Agreed, the "Nancy" problem has been widely known even among house democrats for years, even before she became speaker.
The "Nancy" problem is that she's too stupid to be in Congress, let alone speaker of the house.
Without Obama, the Dems would be led by Biden, Pelosi and Reid. One smooth-talking weasel can cover a multitude of morons.
I don’t think the Republicans are her worst enemy. She’s being hung out to dry by the Obama team, which works secretively but ruthlessly. Steny Hoyer is known to be a good friend of Rahm Emmanuel and has always hated Pelosi, and all of her other enemies in the party have gotten the message that it’s ok to turn on her now. She would have done it to them if she could have, of course, so I don’t think we have to shed any tears for her.
But I think what we are really seeing is a Dem “Night of the Long Knives.”
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