With Pelosi’s blessing, Dems push ahead with probe of CIA

The Hill ^ | 07/13/09 07:34 PM [ET] | Jared Allen

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

With their Speaker behind them, House Democrats are pushing ahead with plans to hold a series of hearings investigating instances in which intelligence officials may have misled members of Congress.

Senior Democratic aides said that a major announcement could come by the end of week, but it was already clear on Monday that House Democrats are seizing on weekend news reports that former Vice President Dick Cheney hid information from Congress.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the CIA, under the direction of Cheney, developed a secret counterterrorism program and then was directed by the vice president to conceal it from Congress.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the program was a classified initiative to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives. Cheney has not commented on the media reports.

Members of both the House and the Senate Intelligence committees learned about the program last week, when CIA Director Leon Panetta told them in classified hearings that he had just learned about the program and had ordered it terminated.

But Panetta also told Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence panels that Cheney had directed his predecessors to conceal the program from all members of Congress, even the so-called Gang of Eight House and Senate leaders and top Intelligence committee members, who are directed under federal law to receive regular intelligence briefings.

Senior congressional aides said Panetta’s latest briefing angered members of the panels, even though Panetta had only weeks prior admitted to members of the Intelligence committees that the CIA had, under past directors, engaged in obfuscation following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

[Venturer]

Well if they did anything right, they kept it a secret.

That’s not the joke, that’s probably the fact.

I dont see how the CIA can fight back when it’s their top man, Panetta, who threw them in the briar patch.

Is there no limit to the damage the Dems will do to hide the lies of their Speaker of the House .

This crap is beginning to be unfunny.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Whose investigating Pelosi, Reid?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We thought they had removed the article...but apparently they realized they were allowing full view ...and they need the revenue...

[Doohickey]

Whoa. You mean the CIA keeps things secret?

[Tzimisce]

I find this amusing. For eight years of Bush, the CIA did nothing but undermine the administration. And now they’re being gutted by the very people they support.

Don’t get me wrong, it sucks our security is getting kicked in the gonads, but that was happening anyway....

[stylin_geek]

I don’t hate intelligence agencies.

I dislike the CIA because they played partisan games against the Bush administration. Now it appears their erstwhile allies, the Democrats, are about to pillory the CIA.

The CIA made the mistake of playing partisan politics when they should have just done their job.

[patriot08]

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They SHOULD be investigating that pos in the White House!

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