ZOMG! A Congressperson Accuses CIA of Lying to Congress

Picture 189Just take a look at these traitorous accusations a certain Congressperson made about the CIA yesterday:

misleading and some might say lying to Congress by the intel community

The [intelligence] community covered it up,

this committee can’t do its job if you don’t share information with us

What is the community unwilling to share with this committee? What policies can’t pass public scrutiny or pass the scrutiny of this committee?

ZOMG! Congressperson, you just accused the CIA of lying to Congress!! You can’t do that!! Remember what Crazy Pete Hoekstra said about such disloyal accusations when beating up on Nancy Pelosi this spring!

She made some outrageous accusations last week where she said that the CIA lied to her and lied systematically over a period of years. That is a very, very serious charge.

It is downright outrageous that a Congressperson would make such brash accusations. Last spring, Crazy Pete even suggested that making such outrageous accusations might require the Congressperson making such claims resign.

Crazy Pete? Will you please tell Crazy Pete that he should stop making such accusations about CIA lying to Congress?

Or better yet, perhaps you can just admit that CIA has systematically lied to Congress, both about the CIA shoot-down of a missionary plane in Peru, and about torture.

HOEKSTRA:Then just kind of speak for a couple of minutes. I want to kind of change the tone a little bit. And I want to talk about accountability.

I want to talk about the inability of the community to hold itself accountable for its performance. And what I see an increasing — from my perspective, an increasing demonstration that this community is unwilling to be held accountable by — by Congress and this committee.

How do I come to this conclusion?

You know we are coming to a — to a close on a very painful chapter in the intel community, the shoot down of Americans, the death of a mother and a daughter in Peru almost nine years ago. The accountability board has recently finished its work. But if there’s ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it.

The justice — or the accountability board was impaneled to investigate the wrongful deaths of these two Americans, misleading and some might say lying to Congress by the intel community. And the result of this is after eight years, there’s been minimal accountability.

I think the only reason that there’s been any accountability is because of the work of people on this committee, myself, Ms. Schakowsky has been a stalwart in working with me and Mr. Miller in continuing to press this issue forward.

You know, you go through this whole process and then you add what I consider insult to injury. You know I’ve asked the community what information can be shared with the surviving family members.

And again, Ms. Schakowsky is working with us to get them a full accounting of exactly what happened in that fateful day in 2001.

With the information that I’ve been told that I could share with the family was mistakes were made. People were held accountable and it won’t happen again.

That’s totally unacceptable. And I hope that under your leadership, the leadership of Director Panetta, this family will get a much more complete accounting of what happened to their wife, their daughter, their grandchild on that day.

The community performance in terms of accountability, have been unacceptable. From my perspective, you can almost say that the bureaucracy won.

These were Americans that were killed, with the help of their government. The community covered it up, they delayed investigating. It took three years, three years for the IG to complete its report. So the accountability board really wasn’t impaneled until seven years after the incident. And it took more than eight years before any sanction were ever proposed and implemented.

From my perspective, it’s a failure of all levels of leadership within the community to hold itself accountable. And perhaps the most tragic of circumstances were people and family members were killed by their own government — or with the help of their own government.

Maybe you can explain today why it took eight years, more than eight years for there to be any type of accountability.

My second point is, this committee can’t do its job if you don’t share information with us. It was last week that we began a hearing by holding up the Washington Post, because the Washington Post had more information than this committee had about what the intel community might be doing in regards to targeting Americans.

Today we get a story from The New York Times. The Whitehouse hastily called a briefing on Tuesday evening to discuss the new details of this case.

I wish you would hastily call a meeting or a conference call with this committee to share information on terrorist cases that might help.

But it’s interesting that to get your best information on what’s going on in the intel community today it appears you go to the newspapers. And these are not the only two instances.

It also concerns Fort Hood. It took us weeks to get information on Fort Hood. It took us weeks to get information on the Christmas Day bomber. Even your — you yourself admitted or said a couple of weeks ago that Congress when they played games with you when you went to Yemen, when they wouldn’t share information with you on the specific instructions from people in the intel community and the — and the administration saying, you know, “When Congressman Hoekstra is in Yemen and he asks questions about these areas where he has oversight, tell him that you can’t answer those questions and that information will be forthcoming when he comes back to Michigan — or excuse me, when he comes back to Washington, D.C.”

What is the community unwilling to share with this committee? What policies can’t pass public scrutiny or pass the scrutiny of this committee?

image_print
  1. Jim White says:

    Dear Crazy Pete,

    This part is not entirely true:

    But it’s interesting that to get your best information on what’s going on in the intel community today it appears you go to the newspapers.

    Sometimes you also have to watch Brian Ross’ reports.

    But be careful, because “the community” uses both Ross and the newspapers to spread lies. Different lies than the ones they tell your committee. They lie to everyone. It’s what they do.

    Hope this helps.

  2. bobschacht says:

    Garry Wills deals with the secrecy issue in his new book, Bomb Power, also discussed on today’s Diane Rehm show. The mentality about secrecy began with the Manhattan Project, continued through the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and is alive today. His account of the secrecy issue deserves wider discussion.

    We will only get out of this mess if Congress gets the bipartisan stones to confront the Executive branch, and is backed up by the Courts. For this reason, I welcome Crazy Pete’s Road to Damascus conversion. Its about time.

    Bob in AZ

  3. Mary says:

    But it’s interesting that to get your best information on what’s going on in the intel community today it appears you go to the newspapers

    Or you could quit playing politics over a dead baby’s body and dig in and ask the hard questions publically, in every venue, over and over and you could use your legislative immunity to share with the American public information that you do have, like the names of Americans who helped blow up a missionary’s wife and her infant and attempt to blow up the missionary, his pilot and his other child.

    You could put some teeth in enforcement mechanisms vis a vis the Exec branch and you could re-implement the independent counsel laws and use the appointments for real assault based crimes conducted from within and with the blessing of the Exec branch.

    You could do your job.

  4. bmaz says:

    You know, that is a very flattering picture of Pete ya got there EW. He doesn’t look crazy at all. Not one bit. Nuh uh. Nosirreee.

  5. MadDog says:

    And more OT and another good read, Jeremy Scahill in The Nation:

    The Expanding US War in Pakistan

    …In military parlance, these above-board US “training” forces operating under an unclassified mandate are “white” forces, while operatives working for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) would be classified as working on “black” operations, sometimes referred to as Special Mission Units. Since 2006, JSOC teams have operated in Pakistan in pursuit of “high-value” targets.

    “What we’re seeing is the expansion of ‘white’ Special Operations Forces into Pakistan,” says a former member of CENTCOM and US Special Forces with extensive experience in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater. “As Vietnam, Somalia and the Balkans taught us, that is almost always a precursor to expanded military operations…”

    …That does not mean, he says, that US military forces are not fighting in Pakistan. “Any firefights in Pakistan would be between JSOC forces versus whoever they were chasing,” he said. “I would bet my life on that…”

    [snip]

    …While the former CENTCOM employee said the US military’s training mission in Pakistan (he is against using contractors for such missions) is in the “US interest,” he cautioned that there is growing concern within the military about what is perceived as the disproportionate and growing influence of JSOC’s lethal “direct action” mentality on the broader Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As The Nation reported in November, JSOC operates a parallel drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, carrying out targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action. JSOC, a military intelligence source told The Nation, also operates several secret bases inside Pakistan. These actions are deeply classified and not subjected to any form of comprehensive oversight by Congress…

  6. Jeff Kaye says:

    I support Congressman Hoekstra in his come-to-Jesus moment re the secrecy of the intelligence agencies and covert ops. I am willing to overlook past statements if he is willing to press this harder (of which I have my doubts). All who are willing to oppose the hubris and power-grabbing of those sections of the government are welcome. There have been stranger conversions, even among CIA DCIs, e.g., Colby in 1975.

    • klynn says:

      I read an article, not too long ago, about all the efforts to castrate the power of Congress as part of the efforts to create an unitary executive via CIA.

      The analysis stated that the only way to stop this would be for citizens to back an effort of strong accountability of CIA via Congress.

      This post makes me think Pete could use an FDL Action and a petition signed to back him up on his concerns in light of Peru Missionary Plane shoot down story. This story paves the way for a citizen petition for pushing CIA accountability to Congress.

      This was the murder of US citizens by CIA out in the open. You do not get many opportunities like this to rally people regarding CIA accountability to Congress.

      The spin off benefits just might move towards restoring the balance of power and shake out more information on torture. Our tax dollars pay for intelligence work. We have a say in restoring the balance of power. If we do not do something now, we may not get another opportunity.

  7. freepatriot says:

    Crazy Pete? Will you please tell Crazy Pete that he should stop making such accusations about CIA lying to Congress?

    this will not do

    Crazy Pete cannot comprehend when you refer to him in the singular

    in the future, please refer to “Crazy Pete A” and “Crazy Pete B”, and in necessary, “Crazy Pete C” and so on …

    and when you do so, remember the bargain that Crazy Pete provides for his constituients, for the cost of one congressional seat, they get a whole team of “Short Bus All Stars”

  8. eCAHNomics says:

    All this business about the CIA lying to congress is so quaint. Everyone knows that the real dastardly deeds are being done by JSOC, which doesn’t have to report to congress.

    • Larue says:

      Badda bing.

      Crazy Pete is a bauble, bright and shiny . . . useless for real changes.

      And for someone else above, Colby was what, 35 years ago?

      This cover up shit is buttoned up big and has been since LONG before Ollie North going back to what, as was said, The Manhattan Project? The CIA’s inception? It’s precursor? OSS?

      It’s just gotten worse across the decades, and is sickening now, between CIA, JSOC as you suggest E, and XE and all the contractor groups with names to hide the XE sourcing.

  9. i4u2bi says:

    Pete could get help maybe…not sure if his BCBS covers his condition. I think we know what condition that is, heh.

  10. bozhidar says:

    Cia is an integral part of US governance. So is banking. As integral parts of one structure, they are at least partly self-regulated.

    Thus, cia head can withold info just like a pol, banker, prez, collumnist, et al.

    But provided such independent acting does not hurt the system; i.e., does not violate a single US law!

    If the system wld be marred because of lying, then the judiciary arbitrates and declares such activities illegal and punishes the lawbrakers.

    So, why did pelosi complain? Everything being OK! tnx

  11. robspierre says:

    I don’t give the proverbial rodent’s rear about this clown’s hypocrisy, as long as he is at last telling the truth. This is a huge opportunity that should not be wasted.

    As I recall, the missionary-plane scandal was first exposed in the lefty liberal blogs. Hoekstra is just confirming those reports belatedly. He is belatedly conceding that Pelosi was right and wrong only in that she did not complain more forcefully and effectively. THIS is what we should be making much of, not his hypocrisy.

    Let’s lock Hoekstra in to a satement that he probably thought of as throwaway, an expedient way of embarassing his Democratic colleagues. Let’s salute his courage. Let’s celebrate his new-found perspicacity. Let’s loudly welcome him as an ally in the fight to restore legislative control over our emerging police state. Then he either goes along and helps us or eats his own words publicly.

    Can FDL get an interview with him so that he can elaborate on his concerns at length?