On The Situation Room John Boehner again calls for Nancy Pelosi to apologize for her statement that the CIA lied to her and that she should "come forward with documents" that support her. When confronted with the fact that Nancy Pelosi has no authority to declassify those documents Boehner admits that she does not but thinks the documents will not support her.
If John Boehner hasn't seen those documents either, how would he know if they would support her or not? Boehner is then asked about Pete Hoekstra's similar claims that the CIA also lied to him.
Blitzer: Last year the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, he said this in response to a case that he was watching very closely, an American citizen who was killed in a plane crash, the cover up he alleged involving the CIA, he said these words--"We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress". That's what Pete Hoekstra said in 2008.
Boehner: Pete Hoekstra did say that. And the Inspector General at the CIA did an investigation and it became clear that some CIA operatives did in fact cover this up. This is not, we’re talking about two different issues here. All the facts in this case are on the table and the truth is now known to all of... to everyone.
BLITZER: So, based on what you know on that case involving Hoekstra, the case he was interested in, do you agree that the CIA then lied to Congress?
Boehner: I know as much about this case as Pete Hoekstra does and the Inspector General did in fact do an investigation, produced a report and frankly supported, I think, Pete’s claims. And all we're trying to do here in both cases is to get to the bottom, get to the truth, and the truth is what we want here. And the fact is that CIA Director Panetta issued a very strong letter to Speaker Pelosi making it clear that in his opinion they did not mislead her or lie to her. And so I either want to see the documents or I'd like to see the Speaker apologize.
So...Republicans saying the CIA lied to them...no problem. Nancy Pelosi...not so much. John Boehner tried to say that his questioning of the NIE on Iran was not the same as Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied. Now he asserts that Pete Hoekstra saying the CIA lied to him is not the same as Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied to her. The hypocrisy here is stunning.
As our own Jon Perr noted:
That House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has badly bungled the imbroglio over what she knew and when about the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture is hard to dispute. Seemingly snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory, Pelosi should have instead simply called the Republicans' bluff and insisted on investigations of torture architects, perpetrators and "accomplices" alike, letting the bipartisan chips fall where they may. But by savaging Pelosi for her statement that the CIA "misled" Congress, Bush's Republican water carriers are again exhibiting selective amnesia. After all, just two years ago it was the same raging right which insisted the CIA was an "anti-Bush cabal" seeking to "undermine" the President.
You can read the rest of his post here: GOP in 2007: CIA "Misleading" and an "Anti-Bush Cabal".
