From an email sent by Wexler’s office:
Today, in hearings on Capitol Hill, I confronted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her role in the lies, exaggerations, and misdirection that led us into the Iraq war.
During my questioning, Secretary Rice falsely stated that she never saw intelligence casting doubt on the Bush Administration claims that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This unbelievable statement is flatly contradicted by numerous government reports and CIA testimonials.
Secretary Rice’s responses demonstrate once and for all that we need aggressive oversight over this out of control Administration. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has ignored the constitutional right of Congress to provide such oversight.
It is time Congress took aggressive action to assert our rights on behalf of the American people.
The House of Representatives must immediately hold former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in contempt of Congress for their failure to respond to congressional subpoenas.
I have been aggressively lobbying Members of Congress to support a vote on contempt, and I am thrilled to report that Speaker Pelosi told me directly that she agrees it is well past time to vote on contempt. I am anticipating that the House will shortly vote on resolutions of both civil and criminal contempt for both Miers and Bolten.
No one should be immune from accountability and the rule of law.
I think it’s wonderful that Wexler is showing more spinal fortitude than almost all of his House colleagues. The one thing that bothers me in this exchange was Rice’s continued defense that “other countries believed it” and that the intelligence on Iraq was the consensus of various intelligence agencies when we know that isn’t the truth and was cherry picked and weighted from questionable sources like Ahmad Chalabi and “Curveball”. I don’t know if there’s an enterprising C&Ler out there that would like to put together for Wexler’s benefit a fact sheet that can cite sources that show Rice’s continued lying on this, something like this great piece by A Tiny Revolution. If there is one, let us know and I’ll make sure to get your work to Wexler’s office.
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