Via Firedoglake, this quote from Lindsey Graham:
Now. I don’t know what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it. And I really don’t think she’s a criminal if she was told about waterboarding and did nothing. But I think it is important to understand that members of Congress, allegedly, were briefed by … about these interrogation techniques. And again, it goes back to the idea of what was the Administration trying to do. If you’re trying to commit a crime, it seems to me that’d be the last thing you’d want to do. If you had in your mind and your heart that you’re going to disregard the law, and you’re going to come up with interrogation techniques that you know to be illegal, you would not go around telling people on the other side of the aisle about it.
The blogger (emptywheel) at Firedoglake argues that in fact the Democrats were not being told about the program. I think it was more nuanced than that. Remember, this crime was very well thought out. At every step of the way they took steps to shield themselves both from exposure and from criminal liability. This was part of that plan of action. I think Nancy Pelosi is basically telling the truth, that the subject was alluded to in such a way that alarm bells were not set off in the minds of the cowed Congresspeople, who, recall, were constantly told they could not reveal anything they were told. If the proverbial waste matter ever threatened to hit the fan, the Bushies would be in a position to intimidate those same Congresspersons by threatening to expose their complicity, which they could easily prove by producing memos of the meetings that only they were allowed to keep. Remember, at the time this was happening, the Republicans were operating under the delusion that they had at least a generation of hegemony ahead of them. They weren’t worried about the executive branch investigating them; all they needed was cover; both from their lawyers and from a compliant Congress. What better way to assure that Congress remained supine than by compromising powerful members of Congress? So, in my view, it was precisely because they were committing a crime that the Bush folks broached these subjects with these people. What better way to keep them silent than to ensnare them in your crime?
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