Scarborough falsely claimed Blair said "he probably would have done" EITs

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough claimed on May 12 that Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair came out and said enhanced interrogation techniques "worked and he probably would have done it in 2002." In fact, Blair wrote in an April 16 letter, "I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time," not that he "probably would have" used the techniques in 2002, as Scarborough claimed.

Moreover, Blair wrote in the letter, "[W]e will not use those techniques in the future." And in an April 21 statement, Blair said that the use of the techniques was not in the country's best interest: "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

Media Matters for America has documented several other instances of the media misrepresenting Blair's letter.

From the May 12 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I wasn't going to call in, but I've been watching the program, of course. I'm on assignment. Willie and I have a very, very important press conference to attend later on.

WILLIE GEIST (co-host): Yes.

SCARBOROUGH: I'm doing some intel on that right now. But I just wanted to say a couple of very quick things here.

First of all, the White House, when it comes to this issue, is not interested in reaching out. It's very interesting. We just heard a report from the White House saying that the White House doesn't care whether these techniques worked or not, but it's very interesting. The White House yesterday released a document from an auditor, inspector general, saying, well, you know, waterboarding and these other techniques didn't work.

So they will release these documents from lawyers in Washington, D.C., but they have classified CIA documents proving that all of these techniques worked; that we broke up Al Qaeda because of these techniques. They won't release that. And when his own intel chief Dennis Blair comes out and says that these enhanced techniques worked and he probably would have done it in 2002, they cherry-pick that information out.

And so the press just sits there acting as if, Liz [Cheney], as if your father is on some other planet for suggesting this, and, in part, it's because the White House is cherry-picking the intelligence that they're leaking out.

So they will leak evidence that hurts the Bush administration's position and your father's position, but they keep classified the documents that make your father's point.