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House Rejects Effort to Probe Pelosi On CIA Claim

That GOP effort to get a congressional investigation into Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the CIA lied to her about torture? Looks like it didn’t get too far.

The Associated Press reports that the House voted by 252-172 to block the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah. Two GOPers, Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined Democrats in voting against it.

Why did Republicans even get a vote in the first place? Well, according to the Speaker’s office, they brought it up as a GOP brought it up as “privileged resolution”, meaning it gets immediately considered. But the non-partisan parliamentarian’s office ruled that the resolution wasn’t in order, because it wasn’t “relevant to privileges of the House”. The GOP, undeterred, wanted to appeal that decision. At that point, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer offered to table the appeal. So to be precise (perhaps overly so) the vote was on Hoyer’s move to table the appeal of the parliamentarian’s ruling that the GOP resolution wasn’t in order.

Big picture: Pelosi isn’t likely to be investigated for having the temerity to claim that the CIA wasn’t entirely honest. So that piece of the Pelosi “story” — which is itself, of course, is a distraction from the larger issue of torture — seems set to go away.

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