Goss Harmin' Harman?

by: David Dayen

Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 09:46:12 AM PDT

But the former intelligence official familiar with the matter noted that (ex-CIA Director Porter) Goss has given only one on-the-record interview on these CIA controversies since leaving the CIA director job. In the December 2007 interview, he said that Congressional leaders, including Representatives Pelosi and Goss himself, Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), and later Rep. Harman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), had been briefed on CIA waterboarding back in 2002 and 2003. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Goss told the Washington Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

Who was the lone lawmaker the article identified as objecting to the program?

Jane Harman.

"Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the [House intelligence] committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program," the Post reported. "Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy. 'When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy,' she said. 'I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything.'"

There is compelling evidence that Goss approved continuing the wiretap on the Israeli agent after seeing Harman's involvement, and in fact tried to get a wiretap up on Harman herself.  The internecine battles between Goss and Harman go back a ways, so it's not impossible.  We learned yesterday that the wiretap in question did not come from the NSA, and so CIA may have had some direct control over it, although the proper chain of command would have been the FBI.  Why was Goss so involved in this?

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Harman did, as has been confirmed by multiple sources, approach the Washington editor of the New York Times in 2004, before the Bush-Kerry election, to try and get them to spike the warrantless wiretapping story.  Nor does it change the fact that Harman, a full-throated supporter of wiretapping, now has become a civil liberties champion when denouncing the surveillance of her.  This must be why she's hired Lanny Davis to do spin control (and surely he can do a better job than her disastrous efforts so far).

Finally, Jon Stewart skewers this story as only he could (on the flip).

DiFi's Problem With Panetta

by: David Dayen

Tue Jan 06, 2009 at 08:02:51 AM PST

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who this week begins her tenure as the first female chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said today that she was not consulted on the choice and indicated she might oppose it.

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director," Feinstein said. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time." [...]

A senior aide to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the senator "would have concerns" about a Panetta nomination.

Rockefeller "thinks very highly of Panetta," the aide said. "But he's puzzled by the selection. He has concerns because he has always believed that the director of CIA needs to be someone with significant operational intelligence experience, and someone outside the political realm."

Most of the intelligence professionals at the top over the past eight years had plenty of "experience" and that didn't work out too well.  The one who came from the political arena, Porter Goss (who was a former spy), wasn't so objectionable to Dianne Feinstein - I mean she voted to confirm him, after all.  Of course, he was a Republican, which makes everything OK.  

But I don't think this is about Panetta's lack of experience; it's his wealth of it, which presages a change in culture inside  the agency.

Panetta's selection suggests that Obama intends to shake up the agency, which has had little public accounting of its role in detaining top terror suspects and transferring others to regimes known to use torture, a procedure known as extraordinary rendition.

The CIA, which denies subjecting detainees to torture, is part of a 16-agency intelligence community whose annual budget now exceeds $47.5 billion. The agency keeps its own budget and number of employees secret. Its successes, too, are mostly kept secret while some of its failures reach front pages.

Panetta has suggested that Obama could do much to signal a break with Bush administration policies by signing executive orders during his first 100 days that ban the use of torture in interrogations and close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

"Issuing executive orders on issues such as prohibiting torture or closing Guantanamo Bay would make clear that his administration will do things differently," Panetta wrote Nov. 9 in a regular column he published in his local newspaper, the Monterey (Calif.) County Herald [...]

"He will be an outsider and I think the president wants an outsider's perspective on the CIA," said Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman and a former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who heads the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "The intelligence community has lost a lot of confidence with the American people and the Congress. I'm talking about 9/11, the Iraq war."

It's that he's an outsider with enough institutional power to actually make changes, and the moral compass to make those decisions based not on burying the past but rooting it out.  THAT'S what has DiFi and Jello Jay spooked.  In fact, they wanted Michael Hayden's right-hand man to take over (on the flip...)

Leon Panetta Selected As CIA Director

by: David Dayen

Mon Jan 05, 2009 at 11:45:37 AM PST

Even though we now know that there were intelligence officials who questioned the assertion, few leaders were willing to challenge this argument for war because they knew it might undermine public support for the president's decision to invade Iraq.

More recently, President Bush vetoed a law that would require the CIA and all the intelligence services to abide by the same rules on torture as contained in the U.S. Army Field Manual [...]

all forms of torture have long been prohibited by American law and international treaties respected by Republican and Democratic presidents alike.

Our forefathers prohibited "cruel and unusual punishment" because that was how tyrants and despots ruled in the 1700s. They wanted an America that was better than that. Torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous and counterproductive. And yet, the president is using fear to trump the law.

I hope he gets cracking on putting the CIA under the Army Field Manual.  That would be a very good start.

As a side note, Panetta has been leading one of the most insufferable organizations in California's history, a high Broderist effort called California Forward, which thinks the biggest problem in the state is that lawmakers from both sides don't have drinks together anymore, or something.  At least Panetta's influence on the state will be lessened.  He's not my favorite guy by any stretch, but if he can manage to not have the CIA kidnapping and torturing anymore he can hold his head up high.

UPDATE by Robert: Apparently DiFi isn't exactly wild about Panetta at CIA:

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director.  I know nothing about this, other than what I've read," said Senator Feinstein, who will chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 111th Congress.

"My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

Five Reasons To Support Bill Richardson

by: Stephen Cassidy

Fri Nov 09, 2007 at 10:09:21 AM PST

Here are five of many reasons why I believe Richardson possesses the experience, vision and leadership skills to be a great President:

1.  A Bright Vision for America
2.  An Ironclad Promise to Promptly End the U.S. Occupation of Iraq
3.  A Bold Agenda To Address The Pressing Challenges Facing Our Nation and Planet
4.  The White House and A Landslide Victory for Democrats Nationwide in 2008
5.  Comprehensive Immigration Reform In Accordance With the Values Upon Which Our Country Was Founded

Harman Speaks to Westside Progressives in Los Angeles

by: David Dayen

Sun Oct 07, 2007 at 15:32:18 PM PDT

I asked the question to Harman about the secret memos.  Earlier this week, the White House claimed that all relevant members of Congress had been fully briefed on the classified program sanctioning harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA.  At the time of the memos, Harman was a member of the "Gang Of Eight" routinely briefed on intelligence matters.  Harman was shaking her head as I asked the question if she was fully briefed, chuckling almost in disbelief.  Her answer:

We were not fully briefed. We were told about operational details but not these memos. Jay Rockefeller said the same thing, and I associate myself with his remarks. And we want to see these memos.

over...

Wilkes the "GOP's ATM"

by: Words Have Power

Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:20:02 AM PDT

It is a bit of a stretch. Most of the Wilkes' bribes go to politicians, from guys like Randy Cunningham, up through more important Republicans such as Tom Delay, Jerry Lewis, Porter Goss, John Doolittle, and on right to the top of the party - George Bush. Yet, Foggo may be the thread that unravels Republican corruption all the way to the top.

But the agency's problems may only get worse, and one reason is Foggo. Federal investigators are looking at the ties of the CIA's "Ex Dir" to a congressional bribery scandal. Foggo was a high-school football teammate and college buddy of Brent Wilkes's, a defense contractor who was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator when former San  Diego congressman and ex-Navy air ace Randy (Duke) Cunningham pleaded guilty. The CIA has acknowledged that its internal watchdog is investigating if Foggo helped steer any contracts to Wilkes. According to three sources who declined to be identified commenting on the details of a government probe, there are also indications that the Feds are interested in Foggo's role in the wider Cunningham bribery scandal. Recent news reports have alleged that Wilkes (who has not been charged with any crime) sponsored poker parties at the Watergate and other expensive Washington hotels, and that he may have been involved in a scheme to provide prostitutes to the disgraced Cunningham.

More on the Repulican's ATM follows.