CIA director admitted lying to Congress, say Democrats

Revelation contained in letter about director Leon Panetta's secret testimony but Republicans say accusation is smokescreen

The head of the CIA has admitted concealing "significant actions" from the US Congress over the past eight years, according to several Democrat members of the House intelligence committee.

Leon Panetta's testimony was made behind closed doors, but yesterday the details of a letter written by Democrats to the intelligence chief discussing his committee appearance said the CIA had "misled members".

Rush Holt, one of the signatories, would not identify the classified matter the CIA has been accused of lying about but said: "We wouldn't be doing this over a trivial matter."

The CIA has been accused in recent times of lying over its extraordinary rendition programme – grabbing suspects from other countries without formal extradition.

In May the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accused the agency of intentionally misleading her by not telling her in a 2002 briefing about its use of waterboarding against a terrorism suspect. That allegation provoked a furious row. CIA documents were subsequently released including notations that suggested Pelosi may have been told about waterboarding at a briefing. Republicans accused her of not being upfront about her knowledge of the interrogation technique, widely condemned as torture.

The 26 June letter to Panetta from the members of the House intelligence committee said the misleading of Congress over the classified matters was "similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods".

In a separate letter obtained by the Associated Press, the committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes, accused the CIA of having lied outright in one case.

"These notifications have led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one case) was affirmatively lied to," he wrote to Peter Hoekstra, the committee's senior Republican. Reyes said in the letter that he was considering opening a full investigation.

George Little, a CIA spokesman, said: "It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up."

Reyes said in a later statement: "I believe that CIA has, in the vast majority of matters, told the truth. But in rare instances, certain officers have not adhered to the high standards ... Both director Panetta and I are determined to make sure this does not happen again."

The release of the committee's letter came ahead of a scheduled House debate on an intelligence billtoday, where the debate about how much Pelosi knew of waterboarding is set to reignite.

Republicans on the intelligence committee have accused the Democrats of making accusations to try to stifle the debate about Pelosi. Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Republicans on the committee, said the letters were of a "blatantly political nature".

Barack Obama is threatening to veto the bill if it includes a Democrat-written provision – opposed by Republicans – requiring the president to tell the whole intelligence committees in their entirety about covert CIA activities.

Under current law, the president is only obligated to notify the top Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the senior Democratic and Republican members on each chamber's intelligence committee.

The White House is concerned that briefing more politicians might compromise the most sensitive US intelligence operations.