Nancy Pelosi and the rest of her Democratic colleagues were fully briefed in 2002 on the CIA’s controversial enhanced interrogation techniques now making its round in the media, according to Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who oversaw the EIT program at the time. Yet, the legislators raised no objections. So why, Rodriguez is wondering, are they now so critical of the report?
On Fox News Sunday, Rodriguez slammed Pelosi and other Democrats for their hypocrisy:
“I remember very clearly briefing [California Democrat] Nancy Pelosi in September of 2002,” he said, claiming he “briefed her specifically on the enhanced-interrogation techniques of Abu Zubayda. So she knew, back in September of 2002, every one of our enhanced interrogation techniques.”
“These people were fully aware of all of the techniques that were given to us and approved by the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice,” Rodriguez continued, saying that neither Nancy Pelosi nor other Democrats — with the exception of then–California congresswoman Jane Harman — “ever objected to the techniques at all.”
Rodriguez insists he even briefed Pelosi on specific methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping, and was met with little resistance. Now, more than a decade later, congressional Democrats have changed their tune, defining these previously used interrogation methods as “torture.”
Rodriguez’s opinion, however, has not changed. When Chris Wallace asked him if he regretted any of the CIA’s methods at the time, he immediately responded in the negative.
Once again, he reiterated the Democrats’ hypocrisy:
“All of those people knew exactly what we were doing.”