Scooter Libby/Plame Leak Figure, Robert Grenier Offers Questionable Pushback to Torture Report
____ Robert L. Grenier is a longtime CIA officer who served as the CIA's top counter-terrorism official (2004-2006) and was fired from that position by CIA director Porter Goss. (Wiki) Later, Grenier joined Kroll, Inc., as Managing Director. In 2009 he was appointed Chairman of ERG Partners, an independent financial and strategic advisory firm focusing on the security and intelligence sectors . . .
The London Sunday Times reported (way back when) that Grenier lost his job with the CIA "because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as 'water boarding'.
In early 2006, Grenier was identified in court documents in connection with the ongoing CIA leak grand jury investigation and charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Grenier told Libby on June 11, 2003, one month before the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and was involved in arranging Wilson's 2002 trip to Niger.[3] Libby claims to have forgotten about the conversation.
On January 24, 2006, Grenier testified in the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, telling jurors Lewis Libby asked him for information about Joseph Wilson's investigatory trip to Niger on June 11, 2003, and that he reported back to Libby about Wilson's wife's involvement in the trip, as well as Wilson's wife's employment by the CIA, later on June 11. Grenier did not, however, mention Plame's name to Libby, which appeared in a column by Robert Novak a month later.more
Today, apparently, Grenier is taking on the task of pushback to the Senate torture report . . . Marcy Wheeler ([link:Grenier then launches a more interesting implicit threat — that CIA will stop doing what the President demands under Article II.|emptywheel] is her handle on her excellent blog), who closely followed the Scooter Libby trial and was a reliable set of eyes and ears for many locked out of the hearing, has offered her view of Grenier's efforts:
emptywheel @emptywheel 54m
Folks, 1st 1,000 words of Grenier's piece are lies. But well worth reading the last 1,000 -- read my post for why: http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/08/11/cias-torture-pushback-gets-more-artful/ …
August 11, 2014 | By emptywheel
____ I well remember when Robert Grenier testified at Scooter Libby’s trial. His performance — and it, like most of the witness testimony — was a performance. But I was more intrigued by the response. Even the cynical old DC journalists were impressed by the smoothness of the performance. “You can tell he was a great briefer,” one journalist who had written a book on the CIA said.
Today, he takes up the role of bogus pushback to the Senate torture report, complete with all the false claims about the report, including:
--SSCI should not have relied exclusively on documents — which, if true, is an admission that millions of CIA’s cables are fraudulent and false
--The claim that members of the Gang of Four were briefed earlier and more accurately than even CIA’s own documents show them to have been
--SSCI — and not CIA — made the decision that CIA officers should not testify to the committee
--That a report supported by John McCain and Susan Collins is a Democratic report (Grenier also claims all involved with it know history from history books, not — as McCain did — from torture chambers)
--That the CIA cables exactly matched the torture depicted on the torture tapes (see bullet 1!), and that CIA’s IG reported that, both of which are false
But perhaps Grenier’s most cynical assertion is his claim — in a piece that falsely suggests (though does not claim outright) that Congress was adequately briefed that Congress’ job, their sole job, is to legislate, not oversee.
A second, related reason would be to build support for comprehensive legislation — that is what Congress is supposed to concern itself with, after all — to remove any of the interpretive legal ambiguity which permitted coercive interrogation to be considered in the first place, and ensure it never happens again.
It is a cynical move, but given the rest of his argument, the part that I find compelling, necessary.
Because Grenier warns Dianne Feinstein that her attack on the Presidentially authorized counterterrorism methods of the past will chill President Obama’s preferred presidentially authorized counterterrorism methods — drone strikes — going forward . . .
I told you CIA would invoke Obama’s drone strikes to limit the damage of the torture report . . .
Grenier then launches a more interesting implicit threat — that CIA will stop doing what the President demands under Article II (authority to fight ISIS covertly). . .
please read more (I'd post more of this here if I thought it was proper): http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/08/11/cias-torture-pushback-gets-more-artful/
. . . what Marcy Wheeler is describing contains so much nuance and knowledge that I'm not sure can be translated effectively into some pat defense or opposition to whatever we want to oppose about the administration's efforts in handling the Senate investigation and report.
It's a clear and good analysis of some of the mind-numbing details surrounding the torture report which will scatter advocates and opponents alike in all sorts of directions; likely that dissonance is someone's deliberate design. At any rate, this is a fascinating read by Marcy which I heartily recommend and am grateful to emptywheel for an interesting and compelling account of this one pushback on the Senate torture investigation findings for anyone interested in this report's release and process of eventual accountability.
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