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Politico: "Sen. Arlen Specter appeared to side with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday in her spat with the CIA over harsh interrogation methods, saying the agency has a history of being less than forthright with Congress. 'The CIA has a very bad record when it comes ... to honesty. It goes back a long time,' Specter said in a speech before the American Law Institute at a Washington hotel."
Meantime, TPM's Zachary Roth compiles a long list of examples of Republican attacks on a once favored punching bag the CIA for allegedly misleading them or not fully briefing them. Among the CIA critics, some of the very same people who have described Nancy Pelosi's accusation that the Bush-led CIA misled her as a sign of treason. A charge Gingrich seems to throw around rather casually. (Whatever happened to his "Drill Here, Drill Now" book tour, anyhow?)
His campaign to cow the Democrats into giving up torture inquiry may have more self interest than just opportunity du jour.
His former senior policy advisor Gardner Peckham was, as reported by the LA Times, enlisted by then Director of CIA Porter Goss to do one of the non reviews of issues of concern raised by CIA IG report on detainee treatment. Peckham reportedly produced a 10 page report praising the program. And according to his biography at BKSH, got some sort of award of appreciation from the CIA counterterrorism center (by many accounts, the CIA subculture most enthusiastically championing the harsh interrogation regime).
LAT:
Peckham's bio at BKSH:Goss, who had taken the helm at the CIA four months after the inspector general's report was filed, eventually complied. But [CIA IG] Helgerson had envisioned a group of experts, perhaps including specialists from the FBI; Goss turned instead to two former government officials with little background in interrogation.
Gardner Peckham, a national security advisor to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, produced the approximately 10-page document that praised the program. It concluded that the program was "very structured and very disciplined," said a former official familiar with its contents, but did not assess the effectiveness of various methods.
Secondly - and I have not been able to sufficiently report this out -- but Gingrich told a former CIA officer source that he undertook a big intel/nat'l security review/report for then VP Cheney - he apparently had a navy staffer assigned to him at AEI to help carry it out, etc. So Gingrich would seem to be more connected to Cheney specifically on security issues than has been apparent.He has served on several advisory groups to senior officials in the intelligence community. Mr. Peckham received an award of appreciation from the DCI Counterterrorism Center in August 2005.