Hoekstra: Pelosi knew about waterboarding

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Republican candidate for governor and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he has seen firsthand the same intelligence briefings given to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and that it included specific information about the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture and abuse used on terror detainees.

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.”

Pelosi continues to deny that she was ever told about waterboarding other than in the abstract, saying that the Bush administration told her only that such techniques were legal, not that they were ever actually used. This despite newly released documents from Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA director, that indicate (though not conclusively) that Pelosi and other leading Democrats in Congress, particularly those with key positions on intelligence committees like Jane Harman and Jay Rockefeller, were told about the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida.

I agree with Josh Marshall when he says that Democrats should not kid themselves about this, that it is likely that several Democratic legislators were briefed on the use of torture and abuse of detainees years ago and did nothing to stop it. I also agree that this is another good reason to have a full investigation of the matter that looks not only at the actions of the Bush administration but also at what Congressional leaders were told and what they did, or didn’t do, with that information.

Having such an investigation that focuses on leaders in both parties will help mute that talk of any such investigations being a question of political revenge. And if Democrats are caught up in it and it turns out, as it now appears, that leaders like Pelosi and Harman knew that torture was going on and did nothing to prevent it, they should suffer the consequences of that inaction, whether they be legal or political. This is a matter of principle over politics.