Story:The Obama administration denied Tuesday that former Vice President Dick Cheney had directly asked the CIA to declassify memos that he claims would vindicate Bush-era techniques for harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists.
A senior U.S. intelligence offical e-mailed: "The Agency has received no such request from the former Vice President.”
A source familiar with the request said the former vice president made the request to the National Archives, and said that is the appropriate process for requesting declassification.
On Monday, after Cheney made the statement to Fox News, the CIA declined to comment.
When reporters at Tuesday's White House briefing asked press secretary Robert Gibbs about the existence of such memos, he referred the question to the CIA.
Politico has asked the National Archives for comment and will post it when it arrives.
What an absolute moran.
Update:This is getting downright Kafkaesque: I just reached a spokesperson for former Veep Dick Cheney, and she categorically refused to explain what Cheney meant when he claimed on Fox News last night that he had “formally asked” the CIA to release intelligence allegedly proving that torture works.
As I noted below, Cheney claimed he’d asked the CIA to release intel reports he’d read detailing info successfully collected via torture. But an intelligence source familiar with the situation told me that the CIA has received no such request from Cheney.
So I asked a spokesperson for Cheney at his transitional office in McLean, Virginia, to explain Cheney’s formal request. “He made the request at the end of March,” the spokesperson replied. “It was a formal request that the CIA declassify specific documents.”
I told the spokesperson about the intelligence source’s denial, and asked how procedurally this formal request had been made. The reply: “We have no comment.”
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(581 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
