dagblog - Comments for "Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations"

Feinstein is owed much more

artappraiser — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 02:17:36 +0000

In reply to White House refuses to hand

Feinstein is owed much more than an apology. The White House needs to cough up documents it is withholding from the public, and it should remove the CIA officials involved and subject them to an independent prosecutor’s investigation.

Dana Milbank, op-ed @ Washington Post, March 11, 2014

Top White House Aides Rushed

artappraiser — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 01:59:33 +0000

In reply to WH tried to mediate

Top White House Aides Rushed to See Sen. Feinstein After She Ripped CIA
By Jeff Stein, Newsweek, 3/13/14

White House lawyers did nothing when CIA Director John Brennan told them he was bringing the Justice Department into a dispute with the Senate intelligence committee, according to a published report, but they jumped after Senator Dianne Feinstein, the panel’s chair, excoriated the CIA Tuesday in a blistering floor speech.

Denis McDonough and Kathryn Ruemmler, the White House chief of staff and its top lawyer, respectively, rushed to Capitol Hill after Sen. Feinstein ripped the CIA for allegedly spying on the panel’s investigation of the agency’s terrorist detention and interrogation operations, carried out during the George W. Bush administration. The four-term California Democrat also accused the agency’s top lawyer of trying to “intimidate” the panel’s investigators by asking the Justice Department to look into whether staffers illegally obtained classified documents in their probe.

Although Sen. Feinstein did not single him out by name in her speech, was deeply involved in the interrshe noted that the CIA lawyer who asked the Justice Department to intervene—Acting General Counsel Robert Eatinger—ogation program.

McDonough and Ruemmler met with Sen. Feinstein in her Hart Building office on Tuesday afternoon after her speech, a Senate aide told Newsweek, on condition of anonymity. The aide offered no details on what was said in that closed-door meeting [....]

White House refuses to hand

artappraiser — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 01:48:06 +0000

In reply to Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations

White House refuses to hand over top-secret documents to Senate committee
Jay Carney confirms sensitive Bush-era material is being withheld from Senate investigation into CIA torture and rendition
By Dan Roberts, Spencer Ackerman and Paul Lewis in Washington, theguardian.com, 13 March 2014

The White House is refusing to hand over top-secret documents to a Senate investigation into CIA torture and rendition of terrorism suspects, claiming it needs to ensure that “executive branch confidentiality” is respected.

In the latest development in the spiralling clash between Congress and the administration over oversight of the intelligence agencies, Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that certain material from the George W Bush presidency was being withheld for fear of weakening Oval Office privacy.

“This is about precedent, and the need, institutionally, to protect some of the prerogatives of the executive branch – and the office of the presidency,” said Carney.

“All of these documents pertain to and come from a previous administration, but these are matters that need to be reviewed in light of long-recognised executive prerogatives and confidentiality interests.”

A report published by McClatchy newspapers on Wednesday night said that Senate investigators were trying to obtain an estimated 9,400 such documents relating to CIA detention and interrogation after 9/11.

But the White House insists this is a “tiny percentage” of the material already available to the intelligence committee, and should not hold up the publication of its report into the CIA program, which is understood to make searing criticisms of the agency [....]

Sounds like they just pushed

artappraiser — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:36:03 +0000

In reply to WH tried to mediate

Sounds like they just pushed it too far with Feinstein with anonymice attacks; my bold:

Senator’s Simmering Battle With C.I.A. Over Detentions Report
By Jonathan Weisman and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, March 12/13, 2014

[....]Mark M. Lowenthal, who, like Mr. Brennan, was a senior C.I.A. official at the beginning of that administration, said Wednesday that Mr. Brennan should long ago have agreed to let the committee release parts of the 6,300-page report it has produced, though the C.I.A. says it contains many inaccuracies. Mr. Brennan, he said, could have agreed to the release of a redacted version of the executive summary and the C.I.A.’s response.

“It would have been a two-day story at best,” Mr. Lowenthal said. “Now, it’s totally out of hand.”

In the end, Mr. Lowenthal said, the C.I.A. director “probably felt he could not give credence to the Senate report and keep his building’s loyalty.” [....]

On Jan. 15, Mr. Brennan requested an emergency meeting with her and the intelligence committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, at which he surprised them by saying that C.I.A. staff members had searched the computer network set up to allow the intelligence committee staff members to review documents on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs for the report.

Then, Ms. Feinstein was infuriated when she learned last month that the C.I.A.’s acting general counsel, Robert Eatinger, had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, charging that committee staff members might have broken the law by gaining unauthorized access to C.I.A. computers and removing documents from the C.I.A. facility in Northern Virginia where they had been examining them for their report.

Still, she admonished her colleagues to stay quiet. She even had a tense exchange last week on the Senate floor with Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, after Mr. Udall released a letter he had written to Mr. Obama that referred to an “unprecedented action taken by the C.I.A. against the committee.”

What ultimately pushed Ms. Feinstein to make her accusations public, according to congressional officials, were news media reports at the end of last week that contained anonymous accusations against the committee’s staff [....]

WH tried to mediate

artappraiser — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 03:54:46 +0000

In reply to Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations

WH tried to mediate CIA-Senate dispute
By Justin Sink, Briefing Room @ thehill.com, March 12, 2014, 10:42 pm

The White House was more deeply involved than previously known in attempting to mediate the dispute between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Senate committee investigating the spy agency’s interrogation practices, according to a pair of reports Wednesday night.

Reuters reported Wednesday evening that White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler attempted to “de-escalate” the conflict by mediating dueling complaints from Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Separately, McClatchy reported that the White House has been withholding more than 9,000 top-secret documents sought by the Intelligence Committee as part of their review into the Bush-era enhanced interrogation program.

According to the wire service, the White House has repeatedly ignored or rejected attempts by the committee to review the records, although President Obama has not formally declared the documents protected by executive privilege. The White House is able to withhold some communications between top aides from congressional investigations to allow an open deliberative process among top aides.

The revelations could intensify pressure on the White House to weigh in on the deepening controversy [.....]

DiFi comes outta the

jollyroger — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:14:42 +0000

In reply to Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations

DiFi comes outta the closet--they've been blackmailing her since forever. She, of all people, knows they are spying on congress!

Feinstein Publicly Accuses

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:11:06 +0000

In reply to Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations

Feinstein Publicly Accuses C.I.A. of Spying on Congress
By Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, March 11/12, 2014

The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of improperly removing documents from computers that committee staff members had been using to complete a report on the agency’s detention program, saying the move was part of an effort to intimidate the committee.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the committee, suggested on the Senate floor that the agency had violated federal law and said the C.I.A. had undermined Congress’s constitutional right to oversee the actions of the executive branch.

“I am not taking it lightly,” she said.

John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, denied Ms. Feinstein’s assertions on Tuesday [....]