The CIA ‘misled Congress five times since 2001’

Update at bottom: Senior intel official concedes Congress was misled

From The Hill:

The CIA misled Congress at least five times since 2001, according to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.

The Democrats said CIA officials had either lied or withheld information from Congress. They also said CIA officials did not fully inform Congress about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques during a September 2002 briefing, which would validate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) claim that she was lied to about the program.

The ongoing probe found the practice of incomplete briefings or outright lying was part of a "large disease" of misinforming even the chairmen of the select intelligence committees, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said at a Tuesday press briefing that highlighted the early findings.

Schakowsky and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) are leading two subcommittees investigating the legitimacy of intelligence briefings to Congress.

Read the rest at The Hill.

A Fox News blog notes that a "senior intelligence official conceded Tuesday that the intelligence community has failed to fully inform Congress about some of its spying activities."

Robert Litt, chief counsel for the Director of National Intelligence, "testified before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday that the spies didn't tell Congress about a small number of operations."

“We have an obligation to get you the information that you need to provide oversight. And the scope of what we provide you needs to be adequate to permit you to provide oversight of the intelligence community,” Litt said.

Litt added, "I think that when some of the agencies went back and looked at their records, they found a couple of matters where they had determined not to brief. And they relooked at it and decided probably ought to be briefed. But those were a few isolated instances.”