Probe of intelligence notification lapses includes Pelosi's briefings

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating at least five cases to determine if U.S. intelligence officials failed to properly notify Congress about intelligence activities, including whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was misled by the CIA in September 2002 about the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspects.

Intelligence Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who is spearheading the investigation, said she would not rule out making referrals to the Justice Department for criminal prosecutions if evidence surfaces that intelligence officials broke the law.

But for now, her subcommittee is collecting and examining documents and preparing to call witnesses for testimony, she said.

As part of a larger committee effort, Intelligence Community Management Subcommittee Chairwoman Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., is leading an effort to determine if changes need to be made to the 1947 National Security Act, which governs how and when lawmakers are notified about intelligence activities.

Schakowsky and Eshoo outlined their investigative efforts to a small group of reporters Tuesday. "I think that we are in a current era of breakdowns," Eshoo said.

In May, Pelosi said the CIA did not inform her during a September 2002 briefing that it was using waterboarding, which is defined as torture by international law, as part of "enhanced" interrogation techniques to get information from terrorism suspects. She also set off a partisan furor by asserting that the CIA misleads Congress all the time.

Schakowsky confirmed Tuesday that her investigation is examining briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques -- and specifically the 2002 briefing to Pelosi.

Her subcommittee is also investigating whether Congress was kept in the dark on other cases, including:

• The destruction in 2005 of CIA videotapes of interrogations;
• The shoot-down -- and subsequent cover-up by the CIA -- of a small plane in Peru that resulted in the death of a Baptist missionary from Michigan and her 7-month-old daughter. The CIA inspector general concluded last year that the CIA covered up information about the incident;
• A covert program begun in 2001 to assassinate terrorists abroad. CIA Director Leon Panetta informed lawmakers in June that information about the program had been withheld from Congress.

Schakowsky said her panel will not examine whether intelligence agencies failed to properly notify Congress that the National Security Agency was wiretapping U.S. citizens without warrants from 2001 to 2008. But she offered no explanation and only identified four of "at least five" cases her panel is investigating.

She said she plans to issue a classified report when the probe is done, but added she hopes some public information can be released.

For now, she said her panel has received all the documents it needs regarding the destruction of the CIA tapes and is planning hearings relating to the Peru shoot-down incident.

Eshoo said she hopes to produce a report by the end of December.