Dianne Feinstein launches scathing attack on CIA over torture cover up

[David Guyatt]

Now this is a very interesting turn of events...

Posted at the request of Paul Rigby (who is unable to post at the moment):

Dianne Feinstein launches scathing attack on CIA over alleged cover-up

US senator and intelligence committee chair accuses CIA of intimidation in effort to block publication of controversial torture report

• Dan Roberts in Washington
  
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 11 March 2014 14.46 GMT
  

Senator Dianne Feinstein speaks to reporters after accusing the CIA of cover-up and criminal activity in a speech on the Senate floor. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of a catalogue of cover-ups, intimidation and smears aimed at investigators probing its role in an "un-American and brutal" programme of post-9/11 detention and interrogation.
In a bombshell statement on the floor of the US Senate, Feinstein, normally an administration loyalist, accused the CIA of potentially violating the US constitution and of criminal activity in its attempts to obstruct the intelligence committee's investigations into the agency's use of torture. She described the crisis as a "defining moment" for political oversight of the US intelligence service.
Her unprecedented public assault on the CIA represented an intensification of the row between the committee and the agency over a still-secret report on the torture of terrorist suspects after 9/11. Resolution of the crisis, Feinstein suggested, may come this week at the White House.
Feinstein confirmed recent reports that CIA officials had monitored computer networks used by Senate staff investigators. Going further than previously, she referred openly to recent attempts by the CIA to remove documents from the network detailing evidence of torture that would incriminate intelligence officers.
She also alleged that anonymous CIA officials were effectively conducting a smear campaign in the media to discredit and "intimidate" Senate staff by suggesting they had hacked into the agency's computers to obtain a separate, critical internal report on the detention and interrogation programme.
Staff working on the Senate investigation have been reported to the Department of Justice for possible criminal charges by a lawyer at the CIA who himself features heavily in the alleged interrogation abuses. The CIA's inspector general has another inquiry open into the issue.
Feinstein said this was a possible attempt at "intimidation" and revealed that CIA officials had also been reported to the Department of Justice for alleged violations of the fourth amendment and laws preventing them from domestic spying.
"This is a defining moment for the oversight role of our intelligence committee ... and whether we can be thwarted by those we oversee," said Feinstein in a special address on the floor of the the US Senate.
"There is not legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime... this is plainly an attempt to intimidate these staff and I am not taking it lightly."
Last week, CIA director John Brennan, a former White House counterterrorism aide to President Obama, issued a rare scathing public statement on the deepening crisis, suggesting that unspecified "wrongdoing" had occurred in "either the executive branch or legislative branch."
Brennan, who initially withdrew from consideration as CIA director in 2008 out of allegations he did not consider torture to be a serious offence, said last week he was "deeply dismayed that some members of the Senate have decided to make spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts."
The committee's report is still classified, and several of its conclusions are sharply contested by the CIA.
Feinstein said that she would immediately appeal to the White House to declassify the report's major findings. The White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is formally on record as supporting the declassification, which the president has the power to order.
The CIA had no immediate comment on Feinstein's remarks. Brennan was scheduled to give a speech reflecting on the first year of his tenure later on Tuesday morning.

Patrick Leahy, chairman of the senate judiciary committee and the longest serving US senator, described Feinstein's speech at the most important he had witnessed in his time in Congress.

"I cannot think of any speech by any member of any party as important as the one the Senator from California just gave," Leahy said.
Feinstein described repeated attempts by the CIA to frustrate the work of Senate investigators, including providing the committee staff with a "document dump" of millions of non-indexed pages, requiring years of work to sort through a necessity, Feinstein said, after former senior CIA official Jose Rodriguez destroyed nearly 100 videotapes showing brutal interrogations of detainees in CIA custody.
"We are not going to stop our investigation and have sent our report to the president in the hope it can be declassified and published for the American people to see," Feinstein said on the Senate floor.
She said the goal of declassifying the report, exposing the "horrible details of cia program that never never never should have existed," was to prevent torture from ever again becoming American policy.

Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International called on the White House to publish the committee's report. "President Obama, who has claimed to have the most transparent administration in history, should move immediately to declassify and release the report. Otherwise, the legacy of torture he inherited will become his own," he said.

[Albert Doyle]

I was going to come in and post this. Remember this criticism is coming from a group that held back and never really offered any resistance to the Bush criminals. If she's going to open that door open it fully and ask why the CIA's placing of one of the conspirator's in Kennedy's assassination, George Johannides, as CIA file monitor wasn't investigated? Or the involvement of CIA in Kennedy's assassination itself?

This is nice, but in the end it is weak good cop/bad cop wrist slapping designed to make it look like we have representatives defending us.

"You mean you are telling me there's gambling going on in this casino!?"

[Lauren Johnson]

I am with Albert on this one. All the branches of the USG must pretend to govern to govern but never cross the line into actually performing their responsibilities. We know what happened to last President who got out of line (Nixon) and then there is our beloved John. The presumption is, of course we are spied on all the time, but this time it is out in the open and we have "to do something."

[Peter Lemkin]

Feinstein has been a cheeleader and guard for the CIA and all the other Intelligence Agencies. She gets no applause from me. If she is really suddenly 'got religion', I'll give her a whispered 'at last'. I think this is mostly theater, as the horse has long left the barn, and now it is 'time' [politically] to admit what has been publicly obvious. If she is the best our Congress can dish up against the onslaught of the surveillance and police state we're in deep trouble. Obama declassifying this report would be a good thing...but there are about 1000 other similar reports to go....perhaps 100 times more covert operations, assassinations, dirty tricks, government overthrows [USA included], torture, rendition, drug running, gun-running, destabilization, propaganda, and more. Only then will be be able to say we are starting to make some progress. I think they are only putting a finger in the dike to distract public attention; while the 'water' floods over the top and drowns out liberty, freedoms, privacy, democracy, peace, and justice. Feinstein also contends that the CIA might have violated the Constitution by hacking into the Committee's computers. While that would be true, it is my contention that the CIA was constructed to and has continuously violated the Constitution [and other laws and treaties] in both letter and spirit. I guess they'll be sent to their room without dinner - this time.......

[Albert Doyle]

Feinstein rushes with her Band-Aid into the covert no man's land covered with grevious combat wounds. She going to need a bigger first aid kit.

[R.K. Locke]

I wouldn't even raise this to the level of "theatre". More like a political Punch & Judy show.

[Albert Doyle]

Funny thing. There was once a president who tried to fight this very thing. Another president even wrote an editorial about it a month after that president was assassinated. Yet another president also warned against this complex getting too much power.

[David Guyatt]

Why did Feinstein say what she did? Was she pissed off at being given the run around after all her years of loyalty? It sounds to me like she was really pissed off about something, but I wonder what it was?

[Kenneth Kapel]

Is Feinstein trying to divert attention from the NSA scandals ? I really can't figure her out, she has been a staunch defender of the American Security State and a foreign policy hawk.

[Albert Doyle]

More likely the powerlessness of American threats in the Ukraine.