Panetta Admitted Cia Misled Congress Since 2001, Lawmakers Say
In a letter to Panetta, the six legislators said he had “recently” testified that “top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress” and “misled members” from 2001 until this week.
The letter, released by the lawmakers yesterday, didnt describe what Central Intelligence Agency actions were at issue.
The agency went to the panel with the new information, CIA spokesman George Little said in a statement last night. “As the letter from these six representatives notes, it was the CIA that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees,” Little said.
The House committees chairman, Democrat Silvestre Reyes of Texas, said in a statement last night that “in rare instances” CIA officers “have not adhered to the high standards” that the agency sets for “truthfulness in reporting” to Congress.
Reyes, who wasnt among the six lawmakers who signed the letter to Panetta, praised the CIA chiefs “recent efforts to bring issues to the committees attention” that “had not been previously conveyed” to it.
Reyes Letter
Reyes was blunter in a July 7 letter to the panels top Republican, saying that the CIA had lied to the committee at least once.
Information Panetta gave the panel June 24 “brought to light significant information on the inadequacy of reporting to the committee,” Reyes wrote to Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan.
The information provided by Panetta “led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notification and (in at least once case) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes said in the letter, previously reported by Congressional Quarterly.
The CIAs revelations “may well lead to a full committee investigation” of the agencys conduct in reporting information to Congress, Reyes said in the letter.
The CIA is required by law to notify Congress of covert intelligence operations.
Correction Sought
The letter from the Democrats called on Panetta to “publicly correct” his May 15 statement, following Pelosis claim, that “it is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.”
The letter was signed by Democrats Anna Eshoo of California, John Tierney of Massachusetts, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Mike Thompson of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.
Pelosi, a California Democrat, charged in May that when she was a member of the House intelligence panel, the spy agency gave her misleading and inaccurate information about whether it had waterboarded suspected terrorists. The CIA has acknowledged that it used the interrogation technique on three detainees suspected of being al-Qaeda operatives to simulate the sensation of drowning.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio challenged Pelosi to either produce evidence to support her claim or retract her assertion that the CIA “misrepresented every step of the way” its use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.
Stands by Comments
As criticism by Republicans of Pelosi over her statement escalated, she said at a May 22 news conference that she stood be her comments and, “I wont have anything more to say about it.”