By GottaLaff
This video is from ABC's This Week, broadcast Jan. 3, 2010:
When directly confronted, Hoekstra was unable to defend himself. Attaboy, Petey, show us what you're made of:
Hoekstra opted not to directly respond to the question. "I'm proud of the role of making sure America is safe. I've been right on the facts all along," replied Hoekstra.
Moran soon gave up. (For more analysis of Hoekstra's depraved fund-raising, see Rachel Maddow.)
House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes has suggested Republicans would be well advised to avoid politicizing the intelligence authorizaton bill later this week in light of evidence that, he says, shows that the CIA “affirmatively lied to” the panel.There's more.
In a Tuesday letter to his committee’s top-ranking Republican, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, that was obtained by Congressional Quarterly, Reyes, D-Texas, wrote that the committee has recently received information that reveals significant problems with the intelligence agency’s reporting to the panel.
“These notifications have led me to conclude this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote.
Reyes did not describe or detail the alleged false or misleading statements to the committee.
By GottaLaff
Yesterday I posted about the question of what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she might have known it. Here's the latest:
As I noted below, newly released documents appear to show that according to the CIA, officials briefed Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats back in 2002 about the use of torture techniques on terror suspects.
But a letter that accompanied these documents, written by the head of the CIA, appears to clearly concede that the information in the docs about who was briefed and when may not be accurate or reliable.
Republicans are pointing to the documents — which were produced by the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, and sent to select members of Congress — to charge that Pelosi and other Dems have been lying about what they knew about waterboarding and when.
But the docs were accompanied by a letter from CIA chief Leon Panetta that appears to suggest the CIA can’t promise that the info is right.
Here's the key part of the PDF (click to enlarge):
“MFR” apparently refers to “memorandum for the record.” [...]
That would appear to be a concession that the CIA isn’t willing to vouch for the accuracy of the info about the briefings in the docs, and that only further inquiry will produce a reliable recounting of what happened.
To be clear, it’s perfectly possible that the info about what Dems were told is right. But not even the CIA is willing to promise this right now.
But wait! It gets better... This just in:
[T]his same letter was also sent to GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra, a leading proponent of the claim that Dems knew the full scope of the torture program early on.Here is the letter to Hoekstra.
What this means is that the Republican who has lodged the highest-profile attacks on Dems over what they knew and when has been directly informed by the CIA that the info on the briefings may not be reliable.Isn't that just like a Rushpublic? If he got any more fair and balanced his last name would be Hannity.
By GottaLaff
"A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret," CQ Politics reports.Guess who it was:
"But the cat's out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter."
And Republicans have the nerve to accuse President Obama of being weak on security?A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world — or at least Twitter.com readers—now know they’re there.
“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.
Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.
Nobody expected, though, that a lawmaker with such an extensive national security background would be the first to break the silence. And in such a big way.
Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.
By GottaLaff
Less than a week after being reappointed as the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) will announce that he will not seek a tenth term in 2010, according to a source with knowledge of the decision.
Hoekstra, who has denied earlier reports that he will retire and consider a run for governor, will make the announcement on Monday, the source told The Hill.[...]
The battle to replace Hoekstra could give Democrats an opportunity to contest another Michigan congressional seat. His district, based on the shores of Lake Michigan, gave President Bush 60 percent of the vote in 2004, but John McCain won just 50.8 percent of the vote in 2008.
Hoekstra will become the latest Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee to announce his departure from the lower chamber. The second-ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Terry Everett (Ala.), is retiring this year, while Rep. Heather Wilson (N.M.) lost a bid for Senate in 2008.
The retirement list could still grow. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) is considering a bid for a Senate seat left open by the retirement of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), the third-ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, had to be convinced to run for a twelfth term in 2008, leaving some to wonder whether he will run again in two years.
.jpg)
