Congressional Investigations of CIA Move Ahead, Republicans Flipflop to Score Political Points

In the wake of revelations that CIA had failed to disclose to Congress a planned terrorist assassination program for seven years, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Reyes announced Friday that his committee has launched a formal investigation into CIA's failure to disclose its activities to Congress. Congressional Republicans, who in the past have been vociferous critics of CIA and especially its communications with Congress, complain that the investigation would be unfair to CIA and is a smokescreen to protect Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Reyes issued a statement Friday afternoon announcing the investigation:

After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct an investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1947.

This investigation will focus on the core issue of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed. To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during Director Panetta's June 24th notification and whether there was any past decision or direction to withhold information from the Committee.

The House Intelligence Committee's investigation will cover a range of issues related to CIA's relations with Congress, such as:

-- Allegations leveled by former CIA official Mary McCarthy in 2006 that senior CIA officers lied to Congress when they claimed that agency interrogation methods complied with treaties barring torture and inhumane treatment.

-- Former ranking Democratic committee member Bob Graham's assertion in 2005 that Vice President Cheney and Bush administration intelligence officials lied to him about domestic eavesdropping,

-- Ranking Republican Intelligence Committee member Pete Hoekstra's accusation that CIA lied to Congress about the shootdown of an American missionary airplane over Peru in 2001.

Hoekstra, who has flipflopped from excoriating CIA to becoming its impassioned defender, illustrates how the GOP is less interested in intelligence policy governance than in scoring political points against Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. A few short years ago, Republicans were openly distrustful of CIA for its supposed 'disloyalty' to Bush administration views on a variety of national security issues.

Indeed, Hoekstra denounced the investigation immediately, telling Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters, "At no time will the Republicans of this committee agree to or take part in congressional Democrats' efforts to tear down the CIA to provide cover for Speaker Pelosi."

Meanwhile, at least one House Intelligence Committee Democrat wants to see Congressional investigations into CIA activities go even further.

Rush Holt, Democratic Intelligence Committee member from New Jersey, has called for investigations "as intense and comprehensive as the probe conducted more than 30 years ago -- in the wake of the Watergate scandal -- by a special committee headed by U.S. Sen. Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat," according to the Newark Star-Ledger. (Hat tip to attackerman)

The Church Committee, and its House of Representatives counterpart, the Pike Committee, carry legendary significance in CIA hallways. Spencer Ackerman of Washington Independent describes the Pike and Church Committees as having "divided the history of the CIA into before and after epochs, with the post-Church/Pike period being one of much greater congressional scrutiny."

Is the House Intelligence Committee's investigation the beginning of a new round of far-reaching Congressional inquiries into intelligence activities? Congress may spoil Obama's plan to look forward to the future, rather than backwards at the past.

 

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Comments

[JohnHKennedy]

We Must Keep The Investigations Going.

Call, write, email and fax AG Holder, Obama and your Congressman.

Send smoke signals if that is all you got, but pressure them until they investigate.

The revelations of their crimes keep coming out and still our Congressional Democrats do nothing to investigate and prosecute them.

SIGN THE PETITIONS
Demanding
both a Commission of Inquiry
and a Special Prosecutor
For All Their Crimes
at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

You should also
contact AG Holder directly &
Demand a Special Prosecutor.

Department of Justice Switchboard - 202-514-2000
Office of the AG - 202-353-1555

Email: usdoj.govdoj.gov

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

NOTE: IF your group has a related petition, send me the url and I'll include it on our website. We have all the petitions for investigation and prosecution of the criminals in the Bush Administration in one place where you have quick and easy access. Takes just a few minutes to sign them all.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Here is a good place to start investigating
Check this Huff Post investigative report out. The Huff Post investigative Journalist uncovers how prisoner abuse/torture was applied to innocents and how upper echelons were directing it (as well as covering it up). The report was up for only a few hours before being replaced this morning. Could it be too controversial? It is the best reporting I've seen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/23/hussam-mohammed-amin-form_n_243818.html?page=2&show_comment_id=27639620#comment_27639620

[Yermammy]

I'm so sorry that Obama's "look forward, ignore the war crimes in the past" is not going to work. Especially since these crimes are international in scope. Barack's going to need every vote he can get in 2012 and although I got him here, I can sit at home the next time if he doesn't inspire me by acting like a real president and follow the RULE OF LAW. Weakness and cowardice are NOT electable qualities.

[brandnewstuff]

Bravo! Aduit trails matter for men of torture rape on domestic soil.. Once does not need to leave Texas for the ART of WAR to occur....

[dredeyedick]

Investigation? From Congress? Yeah, sure. It'll be a real "investigation." It'll be "far reaching" (excuse me, must suppress guffaw).

What about investigating the domestic assassination project called "Music" ?

Please. Don't make me laugh.

Here is a downloadable collection of widely scattered pdf's about warrantless domestic surveillance (principally NSA, but also CIA), converted to html with links to references and citations, which I put together in 2006: http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/nsa.html

For more on the "Music" operation(s) which most likely are responsible for the deaths of Gary Webb and Steve Kangas, take a look at this: http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/big_brother_talons_on_you.html

For the Congresssional Research Service's 2005 take on "Statutory Procedures Under Which Congress Is To Be Informed of U.S. Intelligence Activities, Including Covert Actions," check out Alfred Cumming's excellent report here: http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/CRS-informing-Congress-of-intel.html

Whatever these invertebrate members of congress do will amount to nothing. Like the non-investigations Attorney General Holder is "considering," it, too, will be a quite straightforward whitewash.

Obama has made clear through his DOJ that he plans to take the abuse of state secrets beyond Bush into uncharted totalitarian executive territory.

fwiw,
dcm

[thromulese]

An investigation that actually gets to the facts?

I’ll believe it when it actually happens.

It will probably be like the bipartisan (i.e. weak/toothless) 911 commission, which ignored many major issues, then whitewashed all the bad players. It was all for show. It was a farce. Hence we learned nothing and that is just what they all wanted.

[MontanaMan]

All dictators need a bogeyman to keep the masses in line. Bush and Cheney needed Bin Laden alive so they could sell their steady diet of fear, fear, fear, which is all they ever really had to sell. It was a lot easier than actually governing. That is hard work, just ask our current president, a real president, how hard it is to get anything accomplished when you actually try to govern on behalf of the American people.

[captainkirk]

From a very checkered past to the failure to prevent 911, through the following year of false information, then the torture and the destruction of the torture tapes; this CIA appears to an average citizen to be a nefarious organization, operating counter to the wishes or the benefit of the American people. No amount of Freedom Medals or promotions to higher office can erase the dubious nature of these men's fortunes and "service" to country. Panetta. Tenet. Bush. Cheney. For all their feigned nobility, they operated and still operate outside the laws of this nation. Therefore they are a rogue element doing bidding for the wealthy and powerful throughout the world.

[David Campbell]

And-we need to know who is responsible for not allowing the special CIA team in Afghanistan to get bin Laden when they had his location pinpointed. They requested backup and permission to get him dead or alive. Neither request was granted. No explanation! We allowed him to escape. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
(I am not a fan of me but perhaps of Charles Darwin)

[dawnec1957]

I concur.....Who called off our Special Ops? Could it be the same people the flew the BinLaden family out of the USA on 9'11 ? Thinking of it, lets investigate WHY and WHO all got flown out of the USA when planes were grounded. What is the USA covering up????

[pvernier]

"What is the USA covering up????"

Bush and Cheney have made me a Conspiracy Theorist !

How about:
Bin Laden was a US operative used as a cover for 911, sound familiar ?

I won't go on. People will think I am crazy.
Maybe a little.