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
http://www.nysun.com/national/blame-game-unfolds-in-house/67821/
Blame Game Unfolds In House
By ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun | December 11, 2007
EXCERPT
Both lawmakers were briefed about the CIA’s practice of waterboarding, a technique deemed as torture by the American military and the Geneva Conventions, but only Mrs. Harman after her classified briefing sent a letter to the CIA regarding the practice, according to the Washington Post. Specifically, Mrs. Harman, who has asked the CIA to declassify the letter, says she wrote a warning against destroying videotapes.
On Monday, Mrs. Harman took to CNN to trumpet the letter she wrote in 2003. “As a rookie ranking member two weeks in, I was briefed on interrogation matters,” she said. “I was concerned enough about some of the things raised in the briefing that I wrote a highly classified letter, which I have asked be declassified, but it hasn’t been declassified. But Director Hayden basically raised the subject last week, so I can say that in my letter, I say that any planned effort to destroy videotapes would be ill-advised.”
On Sunday, Mrs. Pelosi issued a statement distinguishing between her briefings and those of Mrs. Harman, who she said “was briefed more extensively and advised the techniques had in fact been employed.” She also said she “concurred” with Mrs. Harman’s letter from 2003 that Mrs. Pelosi said protested the new interrogation practices.
Mrs. Harman yesterday met those careful words with an icy politeness. When asked on CNN whether Mrs. Pelosi “dropped the ball” when she was on the intelligence committee in 2002, Mrs. Harman said: “I don’t think so. And she’s speaking for herself. I wasn’t in the meeting she attended. But she says that she has complained about this.”
(snip)
A California Democratic strategist who knows both women yesterday said Mrs. Pelosi’s decision to deny Mrs. Harman the chairmanship of the intelligence committee was driven more by personality than politics. “Denying Jane Harman the chairmanship of that committee was a curious act, I am not sure it had as much to do with policy but personality,” Garry South said during a telephone interview.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0712/10/ltm.02.html
AMERICAN MORNING
Church Shooting in New Life Church; Al Gore Receiving A Nobel Peace Prize; CompUSA Shutting Down
Aired December 10, 2007 - 07:00 ET
EXCERPT
ROBERTS: Always good to see. Let me ask you about that meeting back in 2002, Porter Goss, who was then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told “The Washington Post” that lawmakers got a pretty clear understanding of waterboarding and he said, “the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.” Is that correct? Was there encouragement?
HARMAN: I wasn’t there in 2002. I was a member of the intelligence committee but I became ranking member in early 2003. So I wasn’t there at that briefing. I was briefed on interrogation matters in my first month on the job, and the briefing I received raised concerns in my mind and so I wrote a letter at that time to the CIA general counsel, who briefed mean and I expressed some concerns about what I heard, including the fact that if there were videotapes, they should not be destroyed. The letter’s classified. I’ve ask that it be declassified, so I can’t say in specific terms what I wrote, but I did hear over the weekend from a staffer that she thinks there was a response, very unsatisfactory, to my letter and I’d be eager to see if the CIA recognized then that what I said was important. They obviously ignored it in 2005.
ROBERTS: And the “New York Times” in 2005 on June the 12th quotes you as saying “if you’re serious about trying to get information in advance of an attack it has to be made to work. I’m OK with it not being pretty.” Did waterboarding rise to the level of torture to you or was that in the realm of “not pretty”?
HARMAN: Well, this is a very complex subject and it was all classified. I agree with John McCain, that waterboarding is torture. I think if anyone has authenticity in congress, he does and that’s his view and I’m very pleased that congress is finally moving basically to ban it, and require that the army field manual, which applies only to military interrogations, applies to everything. We made a big mistake by letting the CIA have separate interrogations procedure.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0712/10/sitroom.01.html
THE SITUATION ROOM
CNN Poll: Huckabee Soars to Top; Huckabee on Gays & AIDS;
Aired December 10, 2007 - 16:00 ET
EXCERPT
BLITZER: One final question.
Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the House, she put out a statement yesterday in the aftermath of “”The Washington Post” story. When she was the ranking member in 2002, once these videotapes were actually made, that she was told about — apparently in these closed- door briefings about the waterboarding, the other harsh interrogation techniques. “The Washington Post” did a whole piece yesterday saying nobody really complained. Maybe one member complained.
Did she drop the ball, Nancy Pelosi, when she was a ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee?
HARMAN: I don’t think so. And she’s speaking for herself. I wasn’t in the meeting she attended. But she says that she has complained about this.
I want to make it very clear, I thought that the videotape — destroying videotapes was wrong, and I spoke out in 2003. I think that waterboarding constitutes torture. I buy John McCain’s view of that.
And I also think that the CIA should not have separate interrogation procedures. That’s why I voted against the Military Commissions Act two years ago which had a carve-out, let the CIA have a separate program. Congress should fix that and is about to fix that, I believe.