It’s Foggy Memory Time!

A nervous-looking bureaucrat named Richard Shiffrin — the former deputy general counsel for intelligence at the Pentagon — declined any opening statement. Almost immediately, his successor Dan Baumgartner, a retired Air Force officer who was with the Joint Personal Recovery Agency, which oversees SERE training, pulled Shiffrin in. Baumgartner said that in July 2002, Shiffrin, on more than one occasion, asked Baumgartner for guidance on SERE’s methods.

In questioning, Shiffrin claims to be unsure about what exactly he told then-Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes  about SERE techniques. He doesn’t remember whether Haynes told him to contact Baumgartner about SERE, or even if he did. "I don’t remember who I contacted when." Was it Baumgartner? "I don’t know." Ah, a vintage Bush official performance. The classics never go out of style.

Baumgartner, at Levin’s prompt proceeds to show the panel a SERE memo he authored and sent to Haynes. Have any of these guys lawyered up yet?