Pelosi accused the CIA of "misleading the Congress of the United States."

Republican senators screamed.

"It's outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar," howled Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee. "It seems the playbook is, blame terror-fighters. We ought to be supporting them."

CIA officials denied lying to Congress and the American people, and that seemed to be that. "Let me be clear: It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress," said CIA Director Leon Panetta. That is against our laws and values."

But, now, we learn that, in late June, Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

Some of the details of Panetta's testimony are contained in a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta that was released Wednesday morning.

"If they actually, purposefully lied here, the next piece of this investigation — I’m thinking about this as a former prosecutor, now — I want to know, was it one briefer who just screwed up?" [Former CIA agent Jack] Rice incredulously asked. "Was it the CIA who drove them to screw up? Or was it the White House who drove the CIA to tell the briefer to screw up? … That’s the real question now."

He added that members of Congress who had every lawful reason to expect to be given classified intelligence should be upset that the agency withheld information.

A leading Republican on Thursday said lawmakers should be forced to take lie detector tests before receiving classified briefings, as debate intensified over lying between the intelligence community and Congress.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a member of the Intelligence Committee and the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said requiring polygraph tests would safeguard the information and clear up who is being told what.
[...]
...Issa’s suggestions seemed to be at odds with more senior Republicans.

Hoekstra quickly shot down the idea of forcing members to submit to polygraph tests, arguing that constitutional separation-of-powers protections would prevent the FBI or the CIA from administering the test to federal lawmakers.

And Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said claims that intelligence officials lied to Congress are not valid.

“I do not believe that the CIA lied to Congress,” Boehner told reporters on Thursday. “I’m still waiting for Speaker Pelosi to put up the facts or retract her statement and apologize.”