http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/05/pot-wants-to-investigate-kettle.htmlMay 08, 2009
Pot wants to investigate kettle...Okay, this is getting very interesting:
"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. “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.”
<snip>
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."
Yes, let's investigate all members of Congress, not just Pelosi, but everyone. I am all for it. Right after we are done investigating the Bush administration - which is clearly trying to switch the focus.
In addition to investigating Pelosi and the impeachment is "off the table" stance, we should
also investigate Rep. Hoekstra's meetings with an Iran Contra arms dealer. From my 2006 article:
"The Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), has recently held meetings in Paris with a front man working for Iranian arms dealer and Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar, US and foreign intelligence sources tell RAW STORY.
In July 2005, it was reported that Congressmen Hoekstra had traveled to Paris along with Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), the No. 2 Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, to meet with Ghorbanifar front man Fereidoun Mahdavi."
In fact, I have a whole list of Congressional members of both parties who should be investigated. But I do not think Rep. Hoekstra is in a position to conduct those investigations. We need a special prosecutor for that. More importantly, we first need to nail down the Bush administration officials involved in a number of serious crimes.
In short, we need an independent body to investigate both members of Congress (and of both parties) and the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration. Congress cannot and should not investigate itself, not with the lot of representatives we have in office and their varying degrees of corruption.
BACKGROUND: From October 2006 -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2461436Update on Hoekstra/Forest Paris meeting: they're stovepiping MEK propaganda! Stovepiping it to Cheney of course. Got deja vu?
From (radio host) Scott Horton's blog:
http://thestressblog.com/2006/10/18/release-the-iran-nie-and-hoaxter-hoekstra/According to former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, writing in the October 9th edition of the American Conservative magazine, the Bush administration is withholding a new CIA National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
- snip-
The rest of the piece is regarding Pete “Hoaxter” Hoekstra and Capital Hill staffer Vaughn S. Forrest’s visit with Manucher Ghorbanifar’s sock-puppet, Fereidoun Mahdavi, which Larisa Alexandrovna also covered for RawStory earlier this week. Giraldi writes:
“The House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra has been receiving information reports from an Iranian exile source in Paris who is believed to be Fereidoun Mahdavi, a close associate of discredited Iran/Contra fabricator Manucher Ghorbanifar. Hoekstra, who has stated his contempt for the US intelligence community, has been using Vaughn Forest, a well-known Hill staffer who has a reputation for right-wing activism, as a channel to the Ghorbanifar circle. Hoekstra recently made a trip to Paris with Forest to meet the source who has been providing information on Iranian intentions in the nuclear field that CIA and DIA analysts consider to be largely fabricated. Unfortunately, some of these reports have been stove-piped to Vice President Cheney’s office through the Pentagon’s Abe Shulsky, who heads up an “Iranian Directorate”, an office that replicates the disbanded Office of Special Plans that was previously used as a clearinghouse for fabricated and speculative exile reports on Iraq. The Ghorbanifar information is also disseminated to the intelligence community from Hoekstra’s House Intelligence Committee. Ghorbanifar and his associates have no access to genuine information about Iran, often just repackaging media reports and propaganda handouts from the Paris-based Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a Pentagon protected Iranian exile group that is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups. Ghorbanifar and Mahdavi are also reported to be the sources of Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon, who advocates pre-emptive war against Iran. Weldon has written a sensational and factually challenged book on Iran that describes Tehran as the number one threat to world peace, a line that is curiously similar to that being promoted by the Israeli lobby AIPAC.”
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