Obama Official Says Secret CIA Program Was Legal, Breaks With Dems

By GottaLaff

UPDATE-- Rebuke time, and you can count on more coming:

Rep Jan Schakowsky, a key House intel committee member and a leading critic of the program, sent me a statement rapping Blair, Obama’s director of national intelligence.

“The issue of lying, misleading, or withholding information from the Congress is a very serious issue and deserves the full attention of the House Intelligence Committee,” she said. “While I share Mr. Blair’s desire for Congress and the intelligence community to be partners in the important mission of protecting the United States from enemies, it is premature to pass judgment on whether or not laws were broken until an investigation is complete.”

Thank you, Rep. Schakowsky.

Original post:

First, some background. From Wikipedia:

He has also promised to end special interrogation regimes and believes the Intelligence Community must conduct analysis on opportunities as well as threats.^{[17][18][19][20]}

From WaPo:

When it comes to today's greatest threat, Blair said the United States must "hunt down those terrorists who are seeking to do us harm." But he also said that the intelligence community must help identify and work with "Arab and Muslim leaders who are striving for a progressive and peaceful future for their religion and their countries." As during the Cold War, such activities must be clandestine so that they do not show the U.S. sponsorship that would undercut the very people and groups America is trying to help.

Now here's the Uh-Oh-O'-The Day:

There’s an important and interesting nugget of news in this morning’s Washington Post article about that secret CIA program that had been concealed from Congress since 2001.

Specifically: The Obama administration is now defending the Bush-era program as legal, putting Obama at odds with Congressional Dems who question its legality and want a probe. [...]

[C]heck out what Obama’s director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told the Post…

Blair broke with some Democrats in Congress by asserting that the CIA did not violate the law when it failed to inform lawmakers about the secret program until last month. Blair said agency officials may not have been required to notify Congress about the program, though he believes they should have done so.

“It was a judgment call,” Blair said in an interview. “We believe in erring on the side of working with the Hill as a partner.”

For Blair to defend the CIA’s legal right to keep Congress in the dark is important because Dems such as Rep Jan Schakowsky and Senator Russ Feingold charge that the CIA program did break the law, with House Dems mulling a probe.

But the Obama administration now seems to be sending a message to Dems, defending the Bush-era program: Cool it; the program was not illegal; we’re voluntarily resetting the agency’s relations with Congress. This won’t sit well with some Dems on the Hill.

Uh-oh.