Hoekstra considers hearings on Pelosi, interrogations

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is under renewed fire after the Obama administration released documents that critics say contradict her claim that she was never told that U.S. detainees were being waterboarded.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on House Intelligence, in an interview Friday said the document proves that Pelosi knew waterboarding occurred but has denied is because of political pressure from the liberal base of her party.

{mosads}“Clearly her left wing is outraged that waterboarding was used,” Hoekstra said. “The bottom line is she and her key staff, they all knew about it.”

Now that these documents have been released, Hoekstra is calling for additional CIA documents to be made public including some that he has read that provide a more complete account of what was discussed in lawmaker briefings.

He is also considering calling for congressional hearings on what members knew and when they knew it.

“I wouldn’t have a problem with the intelligence committee or the Judiciary Committee having hearings on this,” he said. “If [House Judiciary Chairman] John Conyers [D-Mich.] wants to have hearings, they shouldn’t call in the Department of Justice attorneys as their first witnesses. The first people that should be called in and held accountable ought to be Congress.”

Hoekstra also indicated he is considering sending Conyers a letter requesting such hearings.

“He now has a list of who should be the first witnesses,” Hoekstra said.

Pelosi’s critics had already deemed her answers convoluted when she explained that she’d been briefed in 2002 that waterboarding had been approved but not that it would be used on terrorism suspects.

But a 10-page summary of briefings of congressional officials prepared by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) indicates Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee was briefed with then-Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) on Sept. 4, 2002. It says they were briefed on interrogation techniques used on a terrorism suspect who is now known to have been waterboarded.

Still, it doesn’t conclusively answer the question of what Pelosi knew, and when she knew it. It says that they were briefed on the methods used to interrogate suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, but doesn’t specifically mention waterboarding.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) did join in a protest filed after the first briefing that specifically mentioned waterboarding in 2003.

In a statement, Pelosi said she stands by her recollection that she was only told that certain techniques had been deemed legal, not that they were being used.

“Of the 40 CIA briefings to Congress reported recently in the press, I was only briefed once, on September 4, 2002, as I have previously stated,” Pelosi said. She reiterated a statement from December 2007 saying she was “briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”

The summary, titled “Member Briefings on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,” says Pelosi and Goss, who later became CIA director, were briefed on so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including their use on Zubaydah and a “description of particular EITs that had been employed.” They were also provided “background on authorities.”

President Obama and other Democrats have deemed the interrogation techniques “torture.”

Republicans claim that Pelosi has known for years that intelligence agents were waterboarding terrorism suspects, but complained only when the practice was made fully public and liberal activists protested.

Pelosi has said she was powerless to do anything after being told that Justice Department lawyers determined waterboarding and other tactics had legal approval.

“You’re really a hostage if you’re notified that something has happened. They’re not asking for your thoughts,” she said in a television interview.

But Pelosi has also said she concurred with a protest Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) had filed with the CIA after a 2003 briefing, the first time waterboarding is specifically mentioned in the DNI sumary.

Harman had succeeded Pelosi as the top Democrat on the panel.

The documents’ release note that they might not settle the debate over who knew what and when.

“In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened,” states the May 6 cover letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.