Attacking Pelosi, Gingrich misrepresents Panetta statement

During the May 20 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, in an attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over her assertion that the CIA gave her false information about enhanced interrogation techniques in a 2002 briefing, Fox News contributor and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich misrepresented a statement by CIA director Leon Panetta, falsely claiming that Panetta said that the "CIA doesn't" lie. Gingrich stated, "I think what Panetta said Friday is very telling. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and the CIA doesn't do it." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, the May 15 statement from Panetta stated, "Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress" [emphasis added]. As Politico's White House reporter Josh Gerstein noted in a May 18 post, "Panetta didn't reject or deny ... Pelosi's allegations that she was falsely briefed by the CIA about interrogations. Look carefully at Panetta's statement from Friday, especially the verb tense used. ... Panetta isn't opining on past acts. He's referring to the current policy. He's also not saying it never happens or happened that someone lied to or misled Congress. He's saying the agency as a whole doesn't intend to."

From Panetta's May 15 statement:

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I'm gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.

Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing "the enhanced techniques that had been employed." Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.

My advice -- indeed, my direction -- to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.

We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is -- even if that's not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.

From the May 20 edition of ABC's Good Morning America:

GINGRICH: What she said Thursday is a stunning, dishonest statement about a major American institution that has a key role in our survival.

DIANE SAWYER (co-host): But, as you know, some people have said that you're doing this for political reasons; it's really a political salvo that you're hurling at her and a kind of double-standard. For instance, Congressman Peter Hoekstra, who was head of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, wrote a letter in which he, on another issue, said this about the CIA: "We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress." That's a Republican saying it.

GINGRICH: Yes.

SAWYER: And they're saying, "Where were you then? You didn't call for him to resign."

GINGRICH: Well, I think in that particular [inaudible] he's fighting with them over a particular report he wants -- this is about a year and a half ago. But I've had a similar standard of toughness with Republicans on other issues. For example, Secretary Paulson, when he was -- I thought he was failing as secretary of the Treasury.

SAWYER: So should he be repudiated for those words, too?

GINGRICH: Well, in that case he's writing a specific letter asking them to change something that they were doing.

SAWYER: So --

GINGRICH: He did not say in that letter --

SAWYER: "Lies," he says.

GINGRICH: -- the CIA routinely lies to the Congress.

SAWYER: Well, he says "lies." He says "what it does and then lies to Congress."

GINGRICH: And I think -- I think that they actually had to come back and testify. I think that it's important for Congress to keep the CIA under observation. It's important for them to have the CIA report regularly. But I think what Panetta said Friday is very telling. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and the CIA doesn't do it. And Panetta said it is harming this institution.

He made a speech Monday in which he said this is harming the institution. And I have no sense that -- I mean, I would certainly, if I were a person trying to defend this country, I would have very little confidence that the speaker of the House had any regard for what we were doing, and what we're trying to do to stop terrorism.