Subject: [big campaign] Fwd: Fw: TPM: Lawmaker: CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading Congress
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Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 08:35:35 EDT
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 From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Sent: 5/19/2009 5:58:06  P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Fw: TPM: Lawmaker: CIA Already Being  Probed For Misleading Congress

 
____________________________________
From: Kincaid, Trevor 
To: Irv;  Hurwit, Cathy; Brown, Isaac; [email-masked]' 
<[email-masked]>  
Sent: Tue May 19 14:44:55 2009
Subject: TPM: Lawmaker:  CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading Congress 

We’re expecting something from  Huff Post later today. 
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/lawmaker_cia_already_being
_probed_for_misleading_c.php
Lawmaker: CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading  Congress
By _Zachary Roth_ (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/zroth)  -  
May 19, 2009, 2:25PM 
As they  go after Nancy Pelosi over the CIA briefings issue, Republicans 
have been  putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's 
all but  unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, 
the  agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different 
issue.   
Last  night, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who chairs the oversight subcommittee of 
the House  intelligence committee, _told_ 
(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x314073)   MSNBC's Ed Schultz 
(h/t Democratic Underground): 
On our subcommittee we are beginning an inquiry into a  situation ... 
initiated by the ranking minority member to look at a situation  where the CIA 
did mislead the Congress ... a documented issue of the CIA  misleading the 
Congress. 
A  Schakowsky spokesman told TPMmuckraker that she was referring to the 
findings  of a CIA inspector general report, portions of which were released 
last fall,  which concluded that the agency had withheld crucial information 
from Congress  and DOJ investigators who were probing whether CIA personnel 
committed crimes  relating to the shooting of a missionary plane in Peru in 
2001.   
As the  New York Times _described  it_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/world/americas/21inquire.html?_r=1&ref=americas&pagewanted=print)  last 
November: 
A C.I.A. surveillance aircraft mistakenly identified  the plane as a 
drug-smuggling aircraft, and a Peruvian military jet shot it  down, killing an 
American missionary and her 7-month-old daughter. The Justice  Department 
closed its investigation into the matter in 2005, declining to  prosecute agency 
officers for any actions related to the episode.   
But [the  inspector general's] report, parts of which were made public on 
Thursday, said  that the Justice Department investigators  and Congress were 
never allowed access to internal C.I.A.  reviews that portrayed the downing 
as one mistake among many  in the agency's counternarcotics program in Peru. 
The  report said the agency routinely authorized interceptions of suspected 
drug  planes "without adequate safeguards to protect against the loss of 
innocent  life." (our itals)   
It  continued:  
The inspector general's report said that after the  downing of the 
missionaries' plane, the C.I.A. had conducted internal reviews  "that documented 
sustained and significant violations of required intercept  procedures." But it 
said that the agency had denied Congress, the Department  of Justice and 
the National Security Council access to these findings.
...   
The  report ... says that C.I.A. lawyers from the office of the general 
counsel  "advised agency managers to avoid written products lest they be 
subject to  legal scrutiny" in connection with the downing of the  plane. 
Who was  it who released portions of the report last fall, and, according 
to  Schakowsky, initiated the current inquiry?  
That  would be Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the intel 
committee. At  the same time that he released the report's excerpts, Hoekstra 
said he was  asking DOJ to look into whether the CIA had obstructed justice, 
and called the  incident "about as ugly as it gets." Schakowsky told Schultz 
last night that  Hoekstra is "furious" about the incident. 
That's  the same Pete Hoekstra, of course, who's been front and center in 
portraying  the agency as the embodiment of transparency and integrity in an 
effort to  vilify Pelosi over the torture briefings. Appearing on CNN 
yesterday, Hoekstra  _called_ 
(http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/05/18/did-nancy-pelosi-lie-new-poll-shows-americans-are-divided/)   Pelosi's claims 
that the CIA had misled her "outrageous accusations."   
But given  that the agency is currently being probed on similar grounds -- 
in an inquiry  initiated by Hoekstra himself -- perhaps Pelosi's claims 
aren't quite so  outrageous after all. 
Trevor Kincaid 
Communications Director 
Office of Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky,  IL-09 
2367 Rayburn House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
Direct: 202-226-6898 
Cell: 202-374-1098 
Email: [email-masked] 
(mailto:[email-masked])  

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