Perjury Exception?

I noted ages ago on this blog that there appears to be a perjury exception for Republicans testifying before the Judiciary Committee -- Clarence Thomas, John Ashcroft and Theodore Olson all clearly have committed perjury in their sworn testimony during their confirmation hearings.

Now that exception appears to extend to the 9/11 Commission as well. (Ashcroft apparently also used this little known exception before the commission this week, giving him a twofer but I'm not going to focus on him today.) I've been increasingly harsh on Condi Rice in recent weeks, but her performance before the 9/11 Commission concerning the August 6 PDB was at least as misleading, and perhaps more so, than President Clinton during his Paula Jones deposition.

Bob Somerby has broken this down quite nicely on his website:

After swearing to tell “the whole truth,” Rice delivered her opening statement. She described that key PDB:

RICE, OPENING STATEMENT: I want to address in some detail one of the briefing items we received, since its content has frequently been mischaracterized.
On August 6, 2001, the president’s intelligence briefing included a response to questions that he had earlier raised about any al Qaeda intentions to strike our homeland.

The [PDB] reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States. It referred to uncorroborated reporting that—from 1998—that a terrorist might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information and it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.

Somewhat comically, that was Rice’s full description of the PDB.

The key fact to remember when analyzing Rice's testimony is that, when she testified, the contents of the PDB were classified, so no one could publicly challenge her characterization of it by producing the document. So Rice simply ignores the facts that hurt her argument:

Yes, the PDB did describe, in paragraph 9, an “uncorroborated report” from 1998 about a possible hijack attempt. But in paragraph 10, it described other ongoing hijack threats, a fact Rice simply ignored:

PRESIDENTIAL BRIEF, 8/6/01: (pgh 9) We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [REDACTED] service in 1998 saying that bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
(10) Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

Commission Member Richard Ben-Veniste noticed this clear contradiction and questioned Rice about it. (Members of the press, reciting Republican "spin," have been critical of Ben-Veniste's questioning, claiming that his setting the record straight from Rice's dissembling had injected "partisanship" into the hearings.)

BEN-VENISTE: Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB.

The title, of course, was "Bid Laden Determined To Strike in US."

Then, Rice answered Ben-Veniste’s first question. Remarkably, this was her answer:

RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks? It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

Now, compare this statement to paragraph 10 of the actual PDB. Sure looks like she's lying, huh? And remember the PDB is classified, so she can lie freely without being challenged.

So Ben-Veniste tries to get around this by using the actual language from the PDB to question her and look at Rice's responses:

Possibly puzzled by her remarks, Ben-Veniste narrowed his question. Indeed, in his next question, he took his language straight from the brief itself:

BEN-VENISTE: As of the August 6th briefing, you learned that al Qaeda members have resided or traveled to the United States for years and maintained a support system in the United States. And you learned that FBI information since the 1998 blind sheik warning of hijackings to free the blind sheik indicated a pattern of suspicious activity in the country, up until August 6th, consistent with preparation for hijackings. Isn’t that so?

The answer to that question is obvious—Yes. As you can see from the text of the PDB, the language of Ben-Veniste’s question came straight from the brief itself. And Rice had sworn to tell “the whole truth.” So what did she do? She evaded:

RICE: You have other questions that you want me to answer in—as part of the sequence?

Yes, that actually was her reply. So Ben-Veniste—his time being wasted—posed his question again:

BEN-VENISTE: You have indicated here that this was some historical document. And I am asking you whether it is not the case that you learned in the PDB memo of August 6th that the FBI was saying that it had information suggesting that preparations—not historically, but ongoing, along with these numerous full-field investigations against al Qaeda cells—that preparations were being made consistent with hijackings within the United States.

Again, Ben-Veniste used the language of the briefing itself. Again, the answer was obvious: Yes. But Rice evaded her oath. She offered a rambling, irrelevant speech, which ended with another misstatement:

RICE: May I address the question, sir? The fact is that this August 6th PDB was in response to the president’s questions about whether or not something might happen or something might be planned by al Qaeda inside the United States. He asked because all of the threat reporting, or the threat reporting that was actionable, was about the threats abroad, not about the United States.

This particular PDB had a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do—speculative, much of it—in ’97, ’98, that he had in fact liked the results of the 1993 bombing. It had a number of discussions of—it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States, Ressam. It reported that the FBI had full field investigations underway. And we checked on the issue of whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings, and we were told, I believe, that the issue was the courthouse in which this might take place.

Commissioner, this was not a warning. This was a historic memo—historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions about what we knew about the inside.

Rice discussed every part of the PDB—except the part about which she’d been asked! “This was not a warning,” she finally said. Each person will have to decide whether to call that a lie.

Readers, keep that one key point in mind. When Ben-Veniste questioned Rice, the American people had no way to check the accuracy of her statements. The PDB was a classified document; as far as Rice knew, it always would be. So what happened? Two separate times, Bern-Veniste questioned Rice using the language of the PDB itself. The answer to his question was simple. But under oath, Rice wouldn’t say it.

Ben-Veniste couldn’t have made it simpler. The answer was obvious—but Rice wouldn’t say it. You’d think the press corps would be upset. And by the weekend, the corps was upset—but not in the way you’d imagine.

Somerby's point, of course, is that the press, repeating Republican spin (created because it is clear that the 9/11 Commission's Report is going to be critical of Bush), criticized Ben-Veniste for going after Rice, not Rice for lying to the commission.

Paging Ken Starr?
- posted by Joshua @ 11:41 AM