CIA Interfered With Senate Committee, May Have Violated Constitution

Dianne Feinstein
(Image by (From Wikimedia) United States Congress, US Senate Photo, Author: United States Congress, US Senate Photo)   Details   Source   DMCA

Feinstein Statement on Intelligence Committee's CIA Detention, Interrogation Report

 

   Washington-- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the committee's study on the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program:

 

   "Over the past week, there have been numerous press articles written about the Intelligence Committee's oversight review of the Detention and Interrogation Program of the CIA, specifically press attention has focused on the CIA's intrusion and search of the Senate Select Committee's computers as well as the committee's acquisition of a certain internal CIA document known as the Panetta Review.

 

   I rise today to set the record straight and to provide a full accounting of the facts and history.

 

   Let me say up front that I come to the Senate Floor reluctantly. Since January 15, 2014, when I was informed of the CIA's search of this committee's network, I have been trying to resolve this dispute in a discreet and respectful way. I have not commented in response to media requests for additional information on this matter. However, the increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating now cannot be allowed to stand unanswered.

 

   The origin of this study: The CIA's detention and interrogation program began operations in 2002, though it was not until September 2006, that Members of the Intelligence Committee, other than the Chairman and Vice Chairman, were briefed. In fact, we were briefed by then-CIA Director Hayden only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.

 

   A little more than a year later, on December 6, 2007, a New York Times article revealed the troubling fact that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of some of the CIA's first interrogations using so-called "enhanced techniques." We learned that this destruction was over the objections of President Bush's White House Counsel and the Director of National Intelligence.