Frost: What if Pelosi and the CIA are Both Being Honest?

Aaron Keyak — May 19, 2009 – 11:09 am | Congress | Terrorism Comments (0) Add a comment

Martin Frost of NJDC’s Chairman’s Council is on a roll for Politico. Today, Frost wrote a piece that asks, “What if Pelosi and the CIA are both being honest?” His basic answer, albeit with another question, is, “I know the press and the public want to believe that someone is lying about what happened on Sept. 4, 2002. What if no one is lying?” Yesterday, Josh Gerstein wrote for the same publication that maybe Panetta and Pelosi aren’t in that much disagreement.

An excerpt from Gerstein (via Ben Smith):

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta didn’t reject or deny House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s allegations that she was falsely briefed by the CIA about interrogations.

Look carefully at Panetta’s statement from Friday, especially the verb tense used. “Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.” First, “let me be clear” always precedes an ambiguous statement. Without fail. Panetta isn’t opining on past acts. He’s referring to the current policy. He’s also not saying it never happens or happened that someone lied to or misled Congress. He’s saying the agency as a whole doesn’t intend to.

Panetta was at his Monterey, Calif. think tank when this all happened in 2002 and 2003. He doesn’t know if Pelosi was lied to. He also doesn’t say he talked to the briefers and is convinced they’re telling the truth. He just says the paper records say she was briefed about the techniques. We knew that already from agency statements. So he’s adding his voice to the mix and sending a signal that he’ll stand by his agency, but to say he sided with the briefers on the specifics is just wrong.

The beginning of Forst’s piece:

The controversy between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the CIA over what she was told about terrorist interrogation techniques on Sept. 4, 2002, is interesting because of a contradiction in the two accounts. She says she wasn’t told that specific enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding were actually being used, and the CIA appears to be saying that she was.

What if they are both right?

Preposterous, you say. Not really.

Click here to read the rest of Frost’s piece and her for Gerstein’s.

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