Greg Sargent reports:
GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra is upping the stakes of the torture fight in response to Nancy Pelosi's claims that she wasn't briefed on the use of waterboarding.
His office tells me that he's seen documents that will prove this isn't true.
Hoekstra spokesperson Jamal Ware says that Hoekstra is now seeking the release of the memos and notes that comprised the basis of the documents that came out today that claimed Dems had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.
"He has seen documents that would clarify exactly what the Speaker was briefed on," Ware tells me, "including whether she was briefed on all enhanced interrogation techniques that had been used."
Asked if those techniques included waterboarding, Ware replied: "Yes."
Coming on the heels of the Hill story posted below, this bodes very ill for the Speaker. She said she'd never been briefed on these techniques, then she said she'd been briefed that they could be used but not that they would or had been used, and now the CIA is saying that she was briefed and Hoekstra is claiming on the record that those briefings included details on the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah.
How can Democrats in Congress possibly investigate the alleged abuses of the Bush administration when their own leader was complicit in approving the very techniques they would now call torture? If Democrats are at all serious about making this anything but a partisan witch-hunt, the first thing they'll need to do is get their own house in order.
