Ex-CIA Official: Senators Claiming They Weren’t Briefed on Torture Had No Time for Briefings in 2004

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hkddPyQ47RM

Former CIA counter-terrorism head Robert Grenier is skeptical of Senate Democrats saying they were intentionally misled about the agency’s enhanced-interrogation program, claiming the relevant officials were fully informed and that some lawmakers now complaining that they were not had no room for a CIA briefing in their schedules. 

Grenier appeared Tuesday night on PBS’ Newshour, where he was asked to address new accusations that the CIA “lied” to the Senate about the program. “Frankly, that’s just farcical,” he said. “It’s simply not true.”

The official, who led the CIA’s counter-terrorism program from 2004 to 2006, claimed that President Bush “knew everything that he wanted to know” and that he “fully briefed those members of the committees and other leaders, both in the House and the Senate, who we were permitted by the administration to brief.”

“Quite frankly . . . I had difficulty getting on the calendar of senators I wanted to brief,” Grenier continued. “So their ardor for the truth is I think a little greater now than it was at the time, in some cases.”