As Congress debates proposals to deny funding for civilian trials of the accused terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have written a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying that selecting the venue for the prosecution of terror suspects is a function of the executive branch.

“The exercise of prosecutorial discretion has always been and should remain an Executive branch function,” write Gates and Holder. “We believe it would be unwise and would set a dangerous precedent for Congress to restrict the discretion of our Departments to carry out specific terrorism prosecutions.”

“Indeed, we have been unable to identify any precedent in the history of our nation in which Congress has intervened in such a manner to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes,” write Holder and Gates.

The letter was reported by Adam Serwer of The American Prospect and is embedded below.

Gates-Holder Letter 022510

The House and Senate could be on the road towards a fierce fight over whether photos depicting prisoner abuse should be released, Politico’s Glenn Thrush wrote on his blog today.

Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a joint statement today that they will use “all the legislative means available” to ensure that the pictures are not made public for three years. The senators added the Obama-backed ban on the photos to the wartime spending bill which passed the Senate late last month.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, House Democrats led by Reps. Barney Frank (Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) have voiced their concerns over the Senate’s move, Thrush said. The Politico blogger added that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she supported the amendment last week and has since wavered on her original position.

The House and Senate must reconcile the differences in their versions of the wartime spending bill before the final bill can be sent to the President Obama’s desk. They are expected to finish hammering out the details this week.

“We will employ all the legislative means available to us including opposing the supplemental war spending bill and attaching this amendment, which was unanimously adopted by the Senate, to every piece of legislation the Senate considers, to be sure the president has the authority he needs not to release these photos and any others that would jeopardize the safety and security of our troops,” the senators said in the statement.

Lieberman said at a news conference last month that the release of the photos would just give into “voyeurism,” and they would be a recruiting tool for terrorists.

We previously reported that the collection includes official photos and informal pictures taken by soldiers. The pictures were obtained during Defense Department investigations of military prisons.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has become an outspoken advocate of the harsh interrogation methods used against suspected terrorists since he has left office, but that is old hat for the former veep who led four of the infamous lawmaker briefings on the techniques, The Washington Post reported today.

He was not listed in the CIA chart that lists the briefings, but sources told The Post he oversaw meetings in 2005 with Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), then-Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and a particularly contentious one with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), according to The Post. At the time, McCain was pushing for an amendment that would have stopped interrogation methods like waterboarding.

The Post said:

“An official who witnessed one of Cheney’s briefing sessions with lawmakers said the vice president’s presence appeared calculated to give additional heft to the CIA’s case for maintaining the program. Cheney left it to the professional briefers to outline the interrogation practices, while he mounted an impassioned defense of the program.”

We previously reported that Rockefeller, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have disputed the accuracy of the CIA chart on the briefings. Pelosi has gone as far as saying that she was misled by the CIA, while Rockefeller and Graham have said they weren’t briefed on the full extent of the harsh interrogation methods.

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to make any further comments on the ongoing interrogation briefings saga today at her weekly press conference.

Pelosi said she continued to stand behind her comments last week when she said she was misled by the CIA on the harsh interrogation methods used against suspected terrorists.

“I don’t have anything more to say,” Pelosi said.

The speaker said at a heated press conference last week that CIA briefers in September 2002 did not inform her that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. She said adviser Michael Sheehy was at a February 2003 briefing where he learned about the actual use of waterboarding on detainees. Pelosi also divulged at the press conference last week that she was informed of the February 2003 letter sent from Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) to the CIA general counsel that questioned the interrogation methods.

Since her comments last week, CIA Director Leon Panetta rejected Pelosi’s accusation, and House Republicans pushed Pelosi to prove or retract her claims. The House also tried to pass a resolution yesterday that would have established a bipartisan panel to investigate Pelosi’s claims.

“What we are doing is staying on our course and not be distracted from it,” Pelosi said.

In a Gallup poll released yesterday, more Americans disapproved than approved of Pelosi’s handling of the interrogation matter.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a rebuke  from the American people on her handling of the harsh interrogation matter, according to a Gallup poll released today.

The poll — which also questioned Americans about President Obama, the CIA, Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans — asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of how each …  has handled the matter of interrogations techniques used against terrorism suspects?” Only with Pelosi and Congressional Republicans did more Americans disapprove than approve of the handling of the interrogation matter.

(Gallup)

Last week, Pelosi said she was misled by the CIA about waterboarding used on suspected terrorists. Today, the House voted down a resolution that would have investigated her accusations.

“The May 19 poll finds Pelosi largely losing the public relations game, as she gets a significantly more negative review for her handling of the matter than do the other major players in the controversy, including the CIA,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones wrote. “Also, notably, Americans are much more critical of Pelosi’s handling of the matter than they are of the broader group of the Democrats in Congress she leads as speaker of the House.”

While House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was away, The House tried to dismay.

The House voted 252-172 to block a resolution sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), which would establish a bipartisan panel to investigate whether the CIA misled Pelosi in 2002 about the use of waterboarding on suspected terrorists, The Associated Press reported this afternoon. The House speaker was giving a commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University at the time of the vote, The AP said.

“This is partisan politics and an attempt by the Republicans to distract from the real issue of creating jobs and making progress on health care, energy and education,” said Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami told The AP.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The AP that Pelosi’s claims can’t be brushed aside.

“To have this charge out there and not have it resolved I think is damaging to our intelligence efforts, and certainly will have a chilling effect on our intelligence professionals around the world,” Boehner told The AP.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) has been busy today.

Coming on the heels of Specter’s submission of his picks to succeed Justice David Souter and his first hearing as chair of the Senate Judiciary subcomittee on crime and drugs, is Specter’s defense of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), reports The Hill:

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) took the opportunity Wednesday to defend House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under fire in recent weeks over a controversy surrounding when she was told of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques being used by the CIA.

“The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say ‘candid’; that’s too mild — to honesty,” Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency’s involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.

Looks like Specter is on track to become a loyal Democrat after all.

The ongoing saga on who knew what and when has two new twists today: a former intelligence professional told Talking Points Memo that the CIA did not use the “enhanced interrogation techniques” term when briefing House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) told Politico his staffer’s inclusion in the infamous briefings document is bunk.

TPM said that although the document refers to the discussion of “EITs” at each of the briefings, the source said the “EIT” term was not used until 2006 — four years after the briefing with Pelosi.

TPM reported:

“The former intel professional said that by using the term in the recently compiled document, the CIA was being “disingenuous,” trying to make it appear that the use of such techniques was part of a “formal and mechanical program.” In fact, said the former intel pro, it wasn’t until 2006 that — amid growing concerns about the program among some in the Bush administration — the EIT program was formalized, and the “enhanced interrogation techniques” were properly defined and given a name.”

As for Obey, the chairman wrote a letter to CIA Chief Leon Panetta asking the CIA chief to remove Obey aide Paul Juola from the document, Politico reported. Obey claimed that Joula was kicked out of the meeting before anything involving interrogations was discussed, Politico said.

The letter obtained by Politico:

“In light of current controversy about CIA briefing practices, I was surprised to learn that the agency erroneously listed an appropriations staffer as being in a key briefing on September 19, 2006, when in fact he was not. The list the agency released entitled “Member Briefings on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)”, shows that House Appropriations Committee defense appropriations staffer Paul Juola was in that briefing on that date. In fact, Mr. Juola recollects that he walked members to the briefing room, met [former CIA Director] General Michael Hayden and Mr. Walker, who were the briefers, and was told that he could not attend the briefing. We request that you immediately correct this record.”

In her news-making press conference yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) laid out a timeline of what she knew and when she knew it.  According to Pelosi, the one CIA briefing that she did receive in September 2002 specifically noted that waterboarding was not being used.  Pelosi said that CIA reports indicating otherwise were untrue, and that she had been lied to in 2002.

REPORTER: So Madame Speaker, just to be clear, you’re accusing the CIA of lying to you in September of 2002?

PELOSI: Yes. Misleading the Congress of the United States.

Pelosi said that she wants the CIA to release detailed reports on her September 2002 briefing so that she can be vindicated.  Dick Cheney is also requesting documents that apparently prove his truthfulness.  In order to bolster her accusation that the CIA lied to her about waterboarding, Pelosi connected the CIA to Iraq:

at exactly the same time [as the September CIA briefing] the Bush adminstration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

She did admit, however, that in February 2003, she was told by an aide that top members of the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed on interrogation methods being used, including waterboarding.  Technically, she couldn’t really do anything about it.  So, the ranking Democratic member on the Intelligence Committee Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) ended up sending a letter to the CIA general counsel Scott Muller questioning the interrogation methods.  ”That is the proper person to send the letter,” Pelosi said at the press conference. “My job (as minority leader) was to change the majority in Congress.”

In defending her good friend Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said: “The CIA on this issue is in a defensive mode. Who knows whether what they’re saying is right or wrong? The CIA is not an agency that is above not telling the truth”

Another interesting quote from Pelosi that may offer a glimpse into the future:

Congress and the Administration must review the National Security Act of 1947 to determine if a larger number of Members of Congress should receive classified briefings so that information can be utilized for proper oversight and legislative activity without violating oaths of secrecy.

Shortly after Pelosi’s presser, John Boehner (R-OH) gave a response:

It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress. They come to the Hill to brief us because they’re required to under the law, and I don’t know what motivation they would have to mislead anyone. And I don’t believe, and don’t feel, that in the briefings I’ve had that I’ve been mislead at any one point in time.

UPDATE: CIA Director Leon Panetta says Pelosi was told the truth.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lashed out at the CIA for “misleading” her about the harsh interrogation methods used against suspected terrorists, admitting for the first time that she knew about the waterboarding of detainees several years ago, The Washington Post reported this afternoon.

Pelosi said she wants the CIA to release detailed reports on her September 2002 briefing, where she continued to maintain that she was not informed about the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002, The Post reported. She said adviser Michael Sheehy was at a February 2003 briefing where he learned about the actual use of waterboarding on detainees, The Post said.

“At every step of the way the administration was misleading the Congress,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference.

She also said she was informed of the February 2003 letter sent from Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) to the CIA general counsel that questioned the interrogation methods, The Post reported.

“That is the proper person to send the letter,” Pelosi said at the press conference. “My job (as minority leader) was to change the majority in Congress.”