Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that she had been briefed by the Bush administration "maybe three years ago" that Rep Jane Harman (D-CA) had been picked up on a wiretapped phone conversation as part of a government investigation. Speaker Pelosi said she had been barred from telling Rep Harman about the recorded call. She also said Rep Harman was apparently not a target of the surveillance, and insisted that the incident did not factor in her decision to deny her colleague the top post on the House Intelligence Committee after Democrats won the majority in 2006. That decision is still a source of friction between the two Californians, who are both powerful and wealthy women, and yet in other ways as different as the districts they represent. Ms. Pelosi's district covers most of San Francisco, while Ms. Harman represents parts of the West Side of Los Angeles and beach areas to the south.
