rssThe Pelosi Plot Thickens
Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 12:01 pm
- 12 Comments
For those of you who missed it, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show last night featured a terrific and news-breaking interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in which Pelosi talked about, among other things, holding Bush administration officials criminally accountable.
As I’ve written before, Pelosi has been a bit cagey in the past about just what sort of criminal accountability she’s looking for. She has previously mentioned holding former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Bush aide and adviser Karl Rove — both of whom ignored congressional subpoenas while citing executive privilege — in contempt of Congress, as well as investigating the politicization of the Justice Department, but Pelosi has been relatively quiet on the authorization of torture by former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Last night, Pelosi clarified her views a bit — sort of. Asked by Maddow if she’d support a ‘truth commission’ along the lines of the one proposed on the Senate floor yesterday by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Pelosi said she supports an investigation, but she isn’t happy about providing immunity for Bush officials who broke the law. “I want to go forward but as we try to have reconciliation … I don’t think we should have immunity for some of those issues,” she said.
On one hand, this suggests that she’s even more gung-ho about prosecuting alleged criminal activity during the Bush administration than most members of Congress. But as Maddow pointed out later, that view also gives Pelosi a convenient excuse to oppose the Leahy truth commission, just as it’s gaining momentum — not only in Congress, but with the American public. That could be a way to prevent an in-depth investigation into exactly how it is that the U.S. government came to authorize the torture of terror suspects — including the role of Democrats who were briefed on the CIA’s tactics.
Not one to let such things go, Maddow specifically asked Pelosi about that as well. Pelosi’s response?
Sure, Pelosi said, some Democrats were briefed, but “they did not brief us that these enhanced interrogations were taking place … they were talking about an array of interrogations that they might have at their disposal.” In other words, the Bush administration briefed Democrats that they might use waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” involving abuse and humiliation, they just didn’t tell the Democrats that they were already using those tactics.
Frankly, I’m not sure what difference that makes. So what if she knew that they might use waterboarding the next day, but hadn’t used it yet? Pelosi’s subsequent point, that there was no way for the Democrats to object publicly about those techniques if they were unhappy about them, seems to me more valid. That is, after all, what a classified briefing means: you can’t talk about it later.
Pelosi said she’d like to change that:
These are issues you can’t even talk to your staff about. And that just isn’t right. Because it gives all the cards to the administration. And if you say anything about it you have violated national security … and that’s what we’re going to change. You don’t want any president, Democrat or Republican, to have that kind of authority.
No, we don’t. Because we’ve already seen the consequences. If we take Pelosi at her word, she’s now supporting prosecution of former Bush officials for all sorts of lawbreaking, as well reforming restrictions on how members of Congress can use classified information to object to the executive’s tactics.
In the end, though, who knew what, when and why it all happened still remains muddled. It sounds more and more like both a truth commission that gets at the whole story AND targeted prosecutions based on the evidence that comes out, is going to be the best way to move forward. However, as human rights lawyers have pointed out to me (and as I discussed with Rachel Maddow on her TV show last week) the two really have to happen simultaneously. Otherwise, given the strict statutes of limitations on torture and other federal crimes, we could end up with a thorough report on senior Bush officials who broke the law, and no way left for the government to prosecute them for it.
Of course, it will take some convincing to get a majority in Congress — not to mention President Obama — to agree to that; but the American public, according to the latest polls, is already well on its way.
It seems Americans have taken to heart the much-cited mantra that we’ve now heard from both Pelosi and the new president: “No one is above the law.”
12 Comments
Comment posted February 26, 2009 @ 10:21 am
So it's going to be tieing up the government much like we did in the stupid Clinton Inpeachment thing, at a time when we need every Congressperson available to pass laws. And you can bet that the 47% of the American public that didn't vote for the Administration is going to look at this as class warfare.
But the most silly item is the desire to turn “secret” briefings into “quasi public briefings”. The first time a foreign government thinks we are going to out an agent or tell of a secret desire to help the US, that will be the last we get any intelligence from them. If a government we had burned knew a plane was winging its way toward New York with a 20 megaton device on board, they would forget to tell us. Who on earth elected these amateurs to pass our laws? Or is it that they know exactly what they were doing, but the end goal of permanent Democratic Party control of the government is worth any damage done to the country.
So yeah, let's warm up those kleig lights, practice those television oratory skills — We gonna have a good old fashioned lynching / intelligence trashing! Isn't that what we hired those 435 people to do? If not, every one of them comes up for reelection in 613 days.
Comment posted February 26, 2009 @ 10:39 am
So, here's a few of the questions I have for this-
1. What DID she ( Pelosi) do about the briefings at the time?
1a.. Did she stand up and say ” I won't be a part of this” or did she stand by patiently waiting for the right time to pounce and make a political name for herself?
2. Who is this woman who thinks war should be “squeky clean”?
Comment posted February 26, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
Hm…okay, so when do we take President Obama into account for violating Article 1 Section 6 of the constitution by putting in Senator Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State? Isn’t he supposed to “support and defend” the constitution, not violate it?
Comment posted February 26, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
I hope she gets the same treatment for bankrupting the country.
Comment posted February 26, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
Class warfare? Is this about the economy? It's a constitutional issue. Who's talking about outing agents and not getting cooperation from other countries? It was Bush who outed a case officer. It's about our representatives having the backbone to stand up and say no to torture and asking tough, pointed questions. They won't be compromising our dealings with other countries. The damage was done by the Bush administration. Now it needs to be repaired and that should mean holding that administration to account for all their misdeeds, all their lawlessness. We didn't “hire” our representatives; we voted for them. Government is not a business and business terminology doesn't apply.
Pingback posted February 27, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
[...] in Bush Administration, Congress, Democrats, Government, Torture at 12:18 pm by LeisureGuy Interesting article by Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent: For those of you who missed it, MSNBC’s The [...]
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
you got to be a f—–g repug get a real life and look what your criminal prez did to usa to the people of the usa to the people of iraq and the world all you repugs should be put in jail and lose the key shame on you pigs
Comment posted March 4, 2009 @ 10:10 am
Article 1 Section 6 of the Constitution reads in part “No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time: and no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. “
She resigned prior to confirmation.
Comment posted April 23, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
In some way, an inquiry that did not waive the right to prosecute would actually vindicate the Bush administration. As it is, most people perceive that the administration was and is hiding something. To hold such a commission yet to say that no possible prosecution would occur as a result is an admission that the commission isn't really about finding out what happened. If no prosecution could result, then the witnesses wouldn't feel obligated to tell the truth.
Comment posted April 23, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
Republicans took vacations for so many years. Was that what you hired the Republican politicians for? Apparently not, since they are on their way out.
Actually, Republicans are not in favor of the government working hard to pass laws. That would be change, and change is the antithesis of conservatism.
Comment posted April 24, 2009 @ 12:56 am
In some way, an inquiry that did not waive the right to prosecute would actually vindicate the Bush administration. As it is, most people perceive that the administration was and is hiding something. To hold such a commission yet to say that no possible prosecution would occur as a result is an admission that the commission isn't really about finding out what happened. If no prosecution could result, then the witnesses wouldn't feel obligated to tell the truth.
Comment posted April 24, 2009 @ 12:59 am
Republicans took vacations for so many years. Was that what you hired the Republican politicians for? Apparently not, since they are on their way out.
Actually, Republicans are not in favor of the government working hard to pass laws. That would be change, and change is the antithesis of conservatism.
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