Silverstre Reyes

Will be the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

I don't think this is anywhere near as important as the punditocracy has made it out to be. Reyes is going to carry out the work that Pelosi and the Democrats expect to be done on the committee:

Under Democratic control, his committee is expected to conduct more public oversight of some of the most difficult issues facing the United States, including terrorism, Iraq and government surveillance. Given the committee's inherently secret nature, much of the work will have to be done behind closed doors.

In an interview this month, Reyes said he will insist on more information about the Bush administration's most classified programs and how they are working. The Republicans, he said, have made a habit of rubber-stamping those programs.

He also wants to look at the role of intelligence three years after the war in Iraq and the state of traditional spycraft, known in spook lingo as "human intelligence."

"We haven't required or haven't had the administration give us the details, evaluation or plan of how these classic programs are functioning," he said. "There is plenty to do on the role of intelligence, the programs that are vital and critical to our national defense and certainly to our war fighters."

I'm cool with all of that. Executive branch secrecy is really the major problem we face in conducting oversight. Reyes did praise the nomination of Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense, but compared to Rumsfeld anything's an improvement. What did give me a little pause (but not much) is this item from Laura Rozen:

One thing you may not know about Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx), now being considered as a compromise candidate to chair the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), is that he joined his friend and colleague, outgoing congressman Curt Weldon at a meeting with infamous Iran Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, against the advice of the Agency, and without informing the U.S. ambassador in Paris, as is proper protocol. The meeting took place at the Sofitel hotel on Rue Boissy D'Anglas around the corner from the US embassy in Paris on a Saturday morning in the spring of 2004 (see update below), according to two sources. (The US government was actually surveilling the hotel lobby that morning out of concern that Iranians might potentially try to harm the congressmen; Weldon apparently loudly asked the concierge for a room for a secret meeting). Ghorbanifar and his business partner were trying to entice the U.S. congressmen to take up the cause of trying to make Ghorbanifar a paid U.S. intelligence asset again on the Middle East, but the CIA would have nothing to do with him, given that he was deemed a fabricator and made the subject of two CIA burn notices in the 1980s, and caused much grief for U.S. policymakers who dealt with him during the Iran Contra affair (think of then-National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane sitting at a Tehran airport with a cake on his lap for Rafsanjani, who wouldn't meet with him, as Ghorbanifar had promised he would, the plane of missile parts from the U.S. sitting in the hangar behind him; Ghorbanifar blamed the mishap on the Americans). What does this say about Reyes' judgment, meeting with a guy like this? Or his knowledge of U.S. operations gone amok?

Reyes denied through a spokeswoman ever meeting with Ghorbanifar. And no source recalls that Reyes was specifically there; all say "it's possible." So I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this until it's revealed that Reyes is personally trading from his private arms stockpile with Iranian agents to aid Nicaraguan Contras after Daniel Ortega (who's President there now, so you never know).

Notably, nobody in the commentariat is saying how Pelosi made a bold move by picking Reyes, or that she smartly avoided the formerly impeached Alcee Hastings, or anything like that. Their silence speaks volumes. Pelosi would have actually had to bend the rules by reinstating the term-limited Harman to the panel; that never gets mentioned either. I wouldn't count on Beltway pundits to spill a lot of ink giving Democrats credit.

UPDATE: Here's Reyes from 2002:

“Every one of us understands that we are a nation of laws, that we lead the world by example, that we have a great respect for process and to protect the rights of everyone. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly today rise in opposition against this resolution, because I think that the president has not made a case as to why Iraq and why attack Saddam Hussein. As a member of the Intelligence Committee I have asked consistently the questions to those that have come before us with information, I’ve said — I’ve asked the question of what is the connection between 9/11 and Iraq and Saddam Hussein? None. What is the connection between Iraq and Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda? Very little, if any.”

I am officially on board.