Pelosi on Zubaydah in June 2002

In case you missed Fox News Sunday, the boss pointed out that Pelosi was well-aware in June 2002 of unsuccessful attempts to get Zubaydah talking--three months before she was briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" that had been used on Zubaydah:

KRISTOL: ... there's more evidence yet that people haven't focused on. In June of -- in the Time Magazine of June -- June 3rd, 2002, Nancy Pelosi was interviewed for a story about how the war on terror was going. And at that point, everyone was on board being tough with terrorists, and she talked about Abu Zubaydah. And she said he was very -- he's very skilled at avoiding interrogation, he's an agent of disinformation. Nancy Pelosi, who was the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, knew enough to know who this person was. She knew that they had failed to get much information from him by regular techniques. And then she pretends -- then she knew, presumably, at the briefing on September 4th that they'd gotten a lot of information from him. The CIA says they explained how they got that information by enhanced techniques. And there's no reason to believe that they didn't. So Nancy Pelosi, who knew enough -- who knew who this person was and knew that he wasn't giving up information, then knows later on he has given up information -- and now she pretends she had no idea how that happened.

Also of note, Kristol warned that Republicans could easily be caught flat-footed if the economy shows growth in the second quarter:

KRISTOL: The market's up 35 percent in the last two months, which is pretty amazing, and up for the year. My friend Larry Lindsay has been predicting, contrary to almost everyone else... WALLACE: And we should point out he was the head of the Council of Economic... KRISTOL: Bush's top economic adviser in the White House. WALLACE: OK. KRISTOL: (inaudible) been a good forecaster for the last 10, 15 years or so in my opinion -- has always predicted that the second quarter, the quarter we're now in, would be positive, actually, in GDP. This amount of liquidity coming into the system would cause a rebound. He also thinks -- and he's got some analysis to back this up -- that we then sink back down a little or, at any rate, don't keep growing. I mean, so I think actually Republicans -- Obama will have a good couple of months here, in my view. Republicans who were chortling over that 20 percent drop in the stock market the first month or two of his administration are going to be, you know, fairly enough, hoisted on our own petard by the fact that now Obama's getting this big stock market rally, some pretty good indicators. We may get some -- an up number. We could on August 1st be sitting here and saying, "Gee, the second quarter GDP was positive." But I think over the longer run we have huge problems. Fannie Mae had a, what, $20 billion loss last quarter. They're not out of the woods. The banks aren't out of the woods. Commercial real estate is about to crash and that hasn't really hit the banks yet. So I -- no one -- no one should base anything on this forecast. But my view is, short term, I'm actually surprisingly bullish. But I think medium and long term -- very worrisome.

Full transcript after the jump:(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NANCY PELOSI: We were not, I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used. (END VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a couple of weeks ago denying any knowledge of what was done to Al Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah. But documents released this week indicate she was fully briefed on exactly what the government was doing. Time now for our Sunday group -- Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Kimberly Strassel from the Wall Street Journal -- a first-timer -- and Juan Williams, also from National Public Radio. So, Bill, the list of congressional briefings -- I think it was 40 briefings -- is even more embarrassing for Speaker Pelosi, because it turns out a couple of months after her briefing that one of her top aides want to another briefing where it says that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah was explicitly mentioned. How big a problem for Nancy Pelosi? KRISTOL: I think it is a big problem. And there's more evidence yet that people haven't focused on. In June of -- in the Time Magazine of June -- June 3rd, 2002, Nancy Pelosi was interviewed for a story about how the war on terror was going. And at that point, everyone was on board being tough with terrorists, and she talked about Abu Zubaydah. And she said he was very -- he's very skilled at avoiding interrogation, he's an agent of disinformation. Nancy Pelosi, who was the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, knew enough to know who this person was. She knew that they had failed to get much information from him by regular techniques. And then she pretends -- then she knew, presumably, at the briefing on September 4th that they'd gotten a lot of information from him. The CIA says they explained how they got that information by enhanced techniques. And there's no reason to believe that they didn't. So Nancy Pelosi, who knew enough -- who knew who this person was and knew that he wasn't giving up information, then knows later on he has given up information -- and now she pretends she had no idea how that happened. LIASSON: I think that in the -- if in the context of Democrats going after Bush administration Justice Department officials in hearings or calling for prosecutions, this becomes a big problem, because it looks like the Democrats are being hypocrites. On the other hand, if they can figure out a way to kind of end this chapter and close -- you know, already we're hearing there are not going to be prosecutions of the people who wrote the memos. Some of this might be referred to their state -- local bar associations for some kind of review. But once that all is finished, then I think the Nancy Pelosi issue goes away, too. WALLACE: Why? I mean, clearly, what the Republicans are trying to do here, Kim, is to organize a pushback, to say to Democrats if you want to pursue -- and Nancy Pelosi hasn't backed off the idea of a 9/11-style truth commission -- if you want to pursue investigations or prosecutions, you have some exposure here, too. Is that an effective pushback? STRASSEL: Well, yeah. And that is why they are, for instance, asking not just for the list that came out this week but also asking, for instance, to have the memos released that talk about how effective these enhanced interrogation techniques were -- just what they might have actually prevented from happening in the United States. And look, too, remember, this is also beginning to snowball beyond Nancy Pelosi. There is questions now coming out about, for instance, Jay Rockefeller, the senator who ran the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. You know, as late as -- the end of 2008, he was saying, "Well, the Bush administration withheld some of this information from us. We didn't have it." But now, based on what we know, he was briefed 12 times, or possibly more. And so he's got questions to ask -- to answer as well, too. WILLIAMS: It sounds like everybody's running for cover, Chris. I think -- I think there are a lot of people here who are involved in a political game. And I think the audience would be wise to ignore it as Washington politics, because if you are truly interested in whether or not Americans are comfortable with terror, let that be the -- the kind of enhanced interrogation techniques of terrorists, let that be the issue. Are we comfortable with what some would call torture? If the Democrats are serious about it, if they're principled about it, they will go forward, and this pushback by the Republicans to say, one, that some of the Democrats knew about it and knew about it at the time, and then, caught up in the frenzy and the fear surrounding 9/11, did not object, well, then, let the Democrats be subjected to criticism from the far left that says you should have raised objections at the appropriate time. But if they are truly about the principle of whether or not torture is not -- should not be allowed, then let that be the issue. I mean, the larger issue, it seems to me, is that you -- Vice President Cheney has been on an offensive, saying, "You know what? American is more vulnerable to terrorist attack because the Obama administration is pulling back on the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques, and they're going back and they're revealing information that we used that we were able to gather, and they shouldn't be doing this." It seems to me that this is all about saying that the Obama administration -- Democrats are weaker and the Democrats in the Obama administration saying, "No, we're going to say that you were offering rationalizations for using torture," and that they really didn't make America safer. That's the big argument. WALLACE: Let me turn to a related subject, Bill, the closing of Guantanamo Bay. You saw this week some Democrats as well as some Republicans pushing back and saying -- you know, the famous NIMBY, not in my backyard -- not only not in my backyard to release them on the street, not in my backyard to put them in a prison. What's the fallout of all this? KRISTOL: Yeah, but not just not in my backyard, but not in this country, as Newt Gingrich was saying. Well, look. I mean, who started -- you know, why did Barack Obama commit to closing Guantanamo? Is that based on any policy analysis or was that just something that sounded good in the Democratic primaries? I mean, that's the fundamental question. Juan says Dick Cheney's been on an offensive. Dick Cheney's defending the administration in which he served, the people with whom he served, against people throwing around charges of torture and illegality and war crimes. I believe he's entitled to do that. I think that -- who released the memos? Who released the legal memos? That was President Obama's decision. He says he took it very seriously. He called on people who argued both sides. He didn't have to make that decision. The Democrats picked this fight and now I think Republicans and others who think that these techniques were appropriate, that Guantanamo Bay was not a place of horror that we should be embarrassed about, are entitled to fight back. LIASSON: Guantanamo's going to be closed. The big question for the Obama administration is that it's a lot easier during a campaign to say we want to close this than to actually figure out what you're going to do with all the people that are there. Some of them will be tried and incarcerated and maybe even put to death in America. The question is what do you do with that 100 or so, which I think is the number that Gates put on it -- 100 or so detainees who you can't release and you can't try for a variety of reasons? Where do you put them? And do you keep them in indefinite detention? WALLACE: There's also a question -- what do you do with the ones that you want to release... LIASSON: Yes. WALLACE: ... but you can't get anybody to take. LIASSON: Right, you can't get anybody to take them. But the ones that you want to keep, can the Obama administration find some legal justification that will satisfy everyone for indefinite detention? That's a big question. They haven't figured that out yet. STRASSEL: And the fight he's going to have initially -- a lot of the attention this week was on this piece of legislation that the Republicans... WALLACE: Yes... STRASSEL: ... put forward... WALLACE: ... which e should say -- The Keep Terrorists Out of America Act. STRASSEL: Yeah. I mean, who wants to be the congressman that votes against... WALLACE: I vote against that. STRASSEL: ... the keep terrorists out? But you know, I mean, the real struggle that he's going to have in the beginning -- the president is going to have -- is with his own party. I mean, before the Republicans introduced this, you already had Democrats on the Hill who were saying, "We're not going to fund this closing of Guantanamo Bay until we actually know what you're doing," because they're already hearing back from their constituents about whether or not these people are going to be located in (inaudible). So he's first going to have to get through his own party to get money and funding and support on this, and then -- and then deal with questions of Republican legislation. WILLIAMS: Well, I think that's key. You know, Democrats are raising questions. I think the moment this week in Washington was Republicans are engaged in some rear-guard fights, but Democrats are the ones who are involved in everything from looking at how the banks are doing, which we'll discuss coming up, to everything in the Supreme Court nomination, to Arlen Specter. It's all about the Democrats. And the Republicans, even on this issue, which they're trying to make their own, a national security issue, are really playing, you know, follow the leader in terms of what the Democrats are doing, because they're just - - they're just in the background. And to respond to what Bill said earlier about torture, you know what? That's a -- that's a large conversation. And Vice President Cheney and the Bush administration are trying to justify their legacy at this point. They're trying to protect themselves, and they're doing so by then, I think, throwing out this fear-mongering attitude -- America is in danger because President Obama is pulling back on the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques. And I just think it's a waste of time. But you know what? WALLACE: The fact is nobody was using -- or has used enhanced interrogation techniques for years, right? KRISTOL: Right. WALLACE: I mean, because we have not had new... WILLIAMS: (inaudible) WALLACE: Well, I know, but the point is do we want to foreswear that for all time if we were to capture a new, high-value target. STRASSEL: On the other hand, they're also advocating... (CROSSTALK) KRISTOL: ... the president going back and releasing memos from previous administrations, releasing -- releasing information about interrogation tactics, for the sake of saying, "Oh, our hands are now clean." There's a very interesting article in the Washington Post today -- there's a May 7th, 2004 inspector general memo which may show that some CIA operatives went a little further than the very careful legal guidance they got from the Justice Department suggested. And the Post article says the Obama administration's claim to release that top-secret document too soon -- as soon as the public debate quiets over last month's release of the Justice Department's interrogation memos. That's what the White House officials have told political allies. And that is -- they are -- this is -- these have been political calculations by the White House, not national security calculations. WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to take a break here. But up next, as Juan suggested, bank stress tests, new unemployment numbers. Is the recession bottoming out? Our panel's thoughts when we come back. WALLACE: On this date in 1908, Mother's Day was observed for the first time in the U.S. in Grafton, West Virginia. Six years later, President Wilson signed a proclamation declaring the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day and a national holiday. Stay tuned for more from our panel. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: We're still in the midst of a recession that was years in the making and will be months or even years in the unmaking. (END VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: That was President Obama Friday reacting cautiously to news the pace of unemployment in the country seems to be slowing down. And we're back now with bill, Mara, Kim and Juan. So, Kim, you, more than any of the rest of us, report on the economy all the time -- your sense of where we are in this recession now? STRASSEL: Well, I mean, the market certainly looked at two pieces of news that came out this week, the results of the bank stress tests and the unemployment numbers, and seemed to hope that the worst was over. I think if you look at those two particular pieces of information, it's a little bit more complicated than that. You know, on the stress tests, yes, they came out of this better than a lot of analysts and investors had expected. But we've also been hearing that the administration -- the Treasury -- might have used a yardstick to measure this that wasn't necessarily as aggressive as they might have done. So you're going to have to look in the coming months to see how this turns out, in fact, in terms of how the banks actually fare. And in terms of the unemployment numbers, yes, lower unemployment numbers than last month. But we also found out some interesting statistics -- for instance, that part of that drop was due to the fact that the government had hired 72,000 workers for the census. You know, those are short-term jobs, not long-term jobs. So you know -- and even then, too, what you're talking about is not necessarily stability, which is what you're seeking in the unemployment market, much less growth. So I think we've still got a long way to go here. WALLACE: Let me just quickly follow up with you. Why would -- and it certainly has been alleged and reported on in some cases. Why would the Treasury Department have gone easier than it should have on the banks? STRASSEL: Well, the -- if you're being a big cynic, the argument is they've got $110 billion left in this bailout program, the TARP program, and they wanted to make sure they came in under that number, because they don't want to have to go back to Congress again and ask them for more money, especially in the wake of the AIG flap and everything like this. So the question is if they went easy in order to make -- to make it politically more easy for them. WALLACE: Juan, is it your sense -- and we don't really know, but is it your sense that this is a normal business cycle or that some of the efforts by the Obama administration, and especially the trillions thrown in by the Federal Reserve, are starting to kick in? WILLIAMS: Well, I don't know the answer. I mean, I think no one knows, as you say, because it's too early. But what we can say is that -- and I would just add to what Kim was saying -- that if you look -- and Ben Bernanke, the Federal -- the chairman of the Federal Reserve said this week if you look at home sales, home sales are -- seem to be rebounding. You look at lending, the credit markets seem to be loosening up a little bit. So -- and consumer confidence, which is absolutely key, seems to be going -- to be rising with consumer spending. So these are all good signs, and the market, as she said -- the market's now up to the point that it's erased all the losses for the year, so the market looks positive, and those are people who study it. Those are people who should know. They have money on the line. To my mind, the issue now is what goes on. The Obama administration said they still have work to do not only with the banks -- and the banks have been bucking the administration because they want to get free of all the kinds of regulations that the Obama administration has in mind -- but they also have to deal with the auto industry still. They have to deal with the insurance industry. So there's still a lot of work to be done, and we just don't know where that goes. KRISTOL: The market's up 35 percent in the last two months, which is pretty amazing, and up for the year. My friend Larry Lindsay has been predicting, contrary to almost everyone else... WALLACE: And we should point out he was the head of the Council of Economic... KRISTOL: Bush's top economic adviser in the White House. WALLACE: OK. KRISTOL: (inaudible) been a good forecaster for the last 10, 15 years or so in my opinion -- has always predicted that the second quarter, the quarter we're now in, would be positive, actually, in GDP. This amount of liquidity coming into the system would cause a rebound. He also thinks -- and he's got some analysis to back this up -- that we then sink back down a little or, at any rate, don't keep growing. I mean, so I think actually Republicans -- Obama will have a good couple of months here, in my view. Republicans who were chortling over that 20 percent drop in the stock market the first month or two of his administration are going to be, you know, fairly enough, hoisted on our own petard by the fact that now Obama's getting this big stock market rally, some pretty good indicators. We may get some -- an up number. We could on August 1st be sitting here and saying, "Gee, the second quarter GDP was positive." But I think over the longer run we have huge problems. Fannie Mae had a, what, $20 billion loss last quarter. They're not out of the woods. The banks aren't out of the woods. Commercial real estate is about to crash and that hasn't really hit the banks yet. So I -- no one -- no one should base anything on this forecast. But my view is, short term, I'm actually surprisingly bullish. But I think medium and long term -- very worrisome. LIASSON: Yeah. Look, I think the long term is worrisome. We're still waiting for the credit card implosion which people are bracing for. But I think a question about the stress tests is if one of the reasons -- the purposes of the stress test was to buy some time, it worked, and it kind of calmed down animal spirits a little bit. People weren't so panicked. Look what's happened in the stock market. But you still have at least two of these big banks, Citi and Bank of America, that are effectively nationalized and may be effectively insolvent. We don't know. We don't know how these stress tests priced those toxic assets on these banks' books. And we don't know what the government plans to do with them over the long term. You know, in June and July, they're going to start this great experiment with these public-private investments that are supposed to buy the assets off the balance sheets of these banks. We don't know if that's going to work. Are the banks going to want to sell them at an incredibly low price so they'll look even -- their balance sheets will look even worse? You know, are hedge funds going to want to invest? And in the end, will taxpayers just end up subsidizing the whole thing? So I think there's still a lot of questions out there. But I agree, this week, they passed with flying colors. WALLACE: Kim, is there a sense that we may be out of the economic free fall, we may be out of the idea of staring into the abyss in some sort of unprecedented way, and that this may be turning into more of a garden- variety recession? STRASSEL: Well, look. I think what Bill just said about kind of short term -- look. Whenever you're pumping $787 billion into the economy, you've got to hope that it... WALLACE: It's even more than that. STRASSEL: Yeah. Well... WALLACE: I mean... (CROSSTALK) STRASSEL: ... when you take the whole package together. So, yes. I mean, I think one of the questions, though, when we talk about whether or not, for instance, the economic plan is working is, as Bill said, the medium and the long term. And -- and with regards to the stimulus itself, for instance, I mean, when you spend that much money, you've got to pay for it down the road. That usually, for instance, involves tax increases. We saw an instance of that come out of the Obama administration this last week in terms of what they want to do now in closing corporate loopholes for corporate taxes and how they earn their money overseas. So -- and you're going to see that more coming out as Congress starts to begin on spending bills and starts looking at policy and tax policy. So the question then is are you actually creating a situation where you are making it impossible to have kind of sustained medium- term, long-term growth. WALLACE: Meanwhile, Juan, it looks like -- because they're not only going to have to spend all this money on bailouts for the banks but also they're going to start to get some money back -- that there was talk this week that the Treasury may have $145 billion of our money burning a hole in its pocket, and they're talking about helping out municipalities -- as you mentioned, life insurance companies -- GMAC, the financial arm of General Motors. So the bailouts -- they may not be of the banks but the -- but the government bailouts of private industry could go on for a while. WILLIAMS: Oh, I think it will go on for a while. I mean, the other way to look at it from the -- from not the conservative point of view is to say, "Wait a second, it's too early to say it's over." No one's saying it's over. This is still a work of art, you know. And Tim Geithner, who was the subject of humor last night, the president saying he's trained his dog not to take a leak on Geithner's leg like everybody else who wants to do that in this town -- you've got to understand that they're going after -- they've got to help cities out. They've got to help with Medicare spending. They've got to help schools out. They've got to help hospitals out. All of this needs to be done to help shore up an economy that is still in crisis. WALLACE: Well, on that happy note, we're going to end it here. Thank you, panel. See you next week. And don't forget to check out the latest addition of Panel Plus, where our group here continues the discussion on our Web site, foxnews.com/fns, shortly after the show ends. Up next, President Obama as standup comedian. We report, you decide, right after the break. WALLACE: President Obama has faced a lot of challenges in his first weeks in office, but last night may have been his biggest yet. At the White House Correspondents Dinner, it was his job to make Washington officials, Hollywood stars and grizzled reporters all laugh. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) OBAMA: I am Barack Obama. Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me. (LAUGHTER) Apologies to the Fox table. They're -- where are they? (LAUGHTER) Now, Sasha and Malia aren't here tonight because they're grounded. You can't just take Air Force One on a joyride to Manhattan. I don't care whose kids you are. (LAUGHTER) Joe Biden rightly deserves a lot of credit for convincing Arlen to make the switch, but Secretary Clinton actually had a lot to do with it, too. One day she just pulled him aside, and she said, "Arlen, you know what I always say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." (LAUGHTER) So I'd like to talk a little bit about what my administration plans to achieve in the next 100 days. During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days. (LAUGHTER) It's going to be big, folks. In the next 100 days, I will learn to go off the prompter and Joe Biden will learn to stay on the prompter. (LAUGHTER) In the next 100 days, we will house-train our dog, Bo, because the last thing Tim Geithner needs is someone else treating him like a fire hydrant. (LAUGHTER) In the next 100 days, I will strongly consider losing my cool. (LAUGHTER) Finally, I believe that my next 100 days will be so successful, I will be able to complete them in 72 days. (LAUGHTER) And on the 73rd day, I will rest. (LAUGHTER) (END VIDEOTAPE) WALLACE: And that's it for today. To all those moms out there, especially mine, thank you. Have a great week, and we'll see you next "FOX News Sunday."