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Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers
(about 5 hours later)
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program. A behind-the-scenes battle between the CIA and Congress erupted in public view Tuesday as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of breaking laws and breaching constitutional principles in an alleged effort to undermine the panel’s multi-year investigation of a controversial interrogation program.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of secretly removing documents, searching committee-used computers and attempting to intimidate Congressional investigators by requesting an FBI probe of their conduct — charges that CIA Director John O. Brennan disputed vigorously within hours of Feinstein’s extraordinary appearance on the Senate floor.
She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance. Feinstein described the escalating conflict as “a defining moment” for Congress’s role in overseeing the operations of the nation’s intelligence agencies, and cited “grave concerns” that the CIA had “violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution.”
She has sought an apology and recognition that the CIA search of the committee’s computers was inappropriate, she said. “I have received neither,” she added. Brennan fired back during a previously scheduled speech in Washington, saying that “when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”
The comments by Feinstein, traditionally a strong advocate for the intelligence community, blew wide open a dispute that has simmered behind closed doors in recent weeks. The dueling claims exposed levels of bitterness and distrust that have soared as the committee nears completion of a 6,000-page report that is expected to serve as a scathing historical record of the agency’s use of water-boarding and other brutal interrogation methods on terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Displaying flashes of anger during her floor speech, Feinstein said her committee would soon be delivering the report to the White House, and pushing for declassification of a document that lays bare “the horrible details of the CIA program that never, never, never should have existed.”
The latest dispute is in some ways a proxy for a deeper conflict over that document. The CIA and the committee are at odds over many of the report’s conclusions about the effectiveness of the interrogation program, but are battling publicly primarily over frictions that surfaced during the probe.
Feinstein’s remarks provided the most detailed account to date of the course of that investigation, describing an arrangement in which the CIA set up a secret facility in northern Virginia with a set of computers where committee investigators were promised unfettered access to millions of operational cables, executive memos and other files on the interrogation program.
The disagreement between Feinstein and Brennan centers on whether agency employees or committee staffers — or both — abused their access to that shared network to gain an upper hand.
Feinstein implied that the CIA sabotaged the committees' efforts from the outset, loading a massive amount of files on computers with no index, structure or ability to search. “It was a true document dump,” Feinstein said.
Over a period of years, investigators pored over more than 6.2 million classified records furnished by the CIA, using a search tool that agency technical experts agreed to install. But U.S. officials said the committee also gained access to a set of documents that the CIA never intended to share, files that were generated at the direction of former CIA Director Leon E. Panetta as part of an effort to take an inventory of the records being turned over to Feinstein’s panel.
The two sides have engaged in heated exchanges in recent days over the nature of those files and how they were obtained.
Referring to them as the “Panetta internal review,” Feinstein insisted that committee staff discovered the documents during an ordinary search of the trove. She said that they are particularly valuable because in tracking the flow of documents, CIA employees in some cases drew conclusions about their contents’ that match the subsequent interpretations made by committee staff.
Panetta’s former chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, said Tuesday that was never the director's intent. Panetta “did not request an internal review of the interrogation program,” Bash said. “He asked the CIA staff to keep track of documents that were being provided...He asked that they develop short summaries of the material, so that we would know what was being provided. ”
The CIA began to suspect that the committee had obtained those files this year after lawmakers referred to the supposed “internal review” publicly. U.S. officials said CIA security personnel then checked the logs of the computer system it had set up for the committee, and found the files had been moved to a part of the network that was off-limits to CIA.
“They did something to get those documents,” said a U.S. official briefed on the matter. A security “firewall was breached. They figured out a workaround to get it.” The official declined to elaborate.
Feinstein said the review documents were “identified using the search tool provided by the CIA,” but was careful not to say precisely how they were obtained. “We don’t know whether the documents were provided intentionally by the CIA, unintentionally by the CIA, or intentionally by a whistle-blower.”
She acknowledged, however, that committee investigators made hard copies of those files and whisked them away to its offices on Capitol Hill, in part because the committee had previously seen cases in which more than 900 pages of records disappeared from the database with no explanation.
Feinstein expressed outrage that the CIA referred the matter to the FBI. “There is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime,” Feinstein said, describing the move as “a potential effort to intimidate this staff, and I am not taking it lightly.”
She also noted that the referral was made by the CIA’s acting General Counsel, Robert Eatinger, who previously served as the top lawyer for the department that ran the CIA’s secret prisons, and who “is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study.”
Feinstein, who has been a staunch supporter of other CIA programs including its drone campaign, said the agency may have violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, as well as laws against domestic surveillance.
Although Republicans on the committee initially voted in favor of launching the investigation, GOP members abandoned the effort after it began and so far none has voted to endorse it.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the intelligence committee, said the dispute is “more complicated than what’s being put out there by Senator Feinstein or others...I don’t think anyone has a clean hand and I think it’s important for the full truth to come out. I think people may be surprised to learn that, in this case, there were no good guys and maybe two or three bad ones.”
[Read a full transcript of Feinstein’s remarks][Read a full transcript of Feinstein’s remarks]
On Tuesday, CIA Director John O. Brennan said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations that the agency did nothing wrong and “has tried to work as collaboratively as possible” with the Senate committee. He said he would defer to a Justice Department investigation and wait for the facts to come out. Brennan, during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations, insisted that the agency did nothing wrong and “has tried to work as collaboratively as possible” with the Senate committee. He said he would defer to a Justice Department investigation and wait for the facts to come out.
Brennan said he wants any historical record of the program to be accurate and balanced and said the CIA was not trying to thwart its progression or release. Brennan said he had ordered the CIA’s inspector general to review the agency’s conduct. The inspector general, in turn, has issued a referral seeking a Justice Department review. So far, U.S. officials said, the department has not reached any decision on whether to pursue a criminal probe of agency employees or senate staff.
“The CIA agrees with many findings in the report and disagrees with others,” he said. Asked if he would resign if the CIA was found to be in the wrong, Brennan said he would let the president decide his fate. “If I did something wrong, I will go to the president,” the CIA director said. “He is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.”
Asked if he would resign if the CIA was found to be in the wrong, Brennan said he would let the president decide his fate. Ellen Nakashima and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
“If I did something wrong, I will go to the president,” the CIA director said. “He is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.” greg.miller@washpost.com
Through press reports, officials alleged that the CIA had searched computers intended to be used solely by the panel as part of its investigation. The searches, officials said, were conducted in an effort to determine how committee staff members had gained access to a draft version of an internal agency review of its controversial interrogation program.
The computers had been provided by the CIA and were housed at a separate facility in Virginia operated by agency contractors.
Agency officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have previously said that Senate investigators accessed documents to which they were not entitled.
Feinstein confirmed that committee investigators had received and reviewed documents detailing the interrogation policy but said she didn’t know whether they were provided intentionally or unintentionally by CIA officials or by agency whistleblowers.
“The staff had asked the CIA about documents made available for our investigation. At times, the CIA has simply been unaware that these specific documents were provided to the committee,” she said. “And while this is alarming, it is important to know that more than 6.2 million pages of documents have been provided. This is simply a massive amount of records.”
[Why the CIA and lawmakers are feuding]
Reading from a prepared text, Feinstein said she was speaking out “reluctantly” but that she wanted to speak in order to clarify the situation. “The increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating now cannot be allowed to stand unanswered,” she said.
The two most-senior Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, Sens. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Richard Burr (N.C.), declined to discuss the specifics of Feinstein's remarks. Chambliss rushed away from reporters after a midday vote.
Burr, a longtime member of both the House and Senate intelligence panels, said he hadn't yet read Feinstein's remarks but said he personally opposes openly discussing activities of the panel or the CIA.
After her speech, Feinstein told reporters that she hopes to make a motion to declassify the report on the interrogation program by the end of the month. It’s not clear if she has the necessary votes to declassify the report.
The Republicans on the committee had refused previously to participate in the report.
The swing vote on the committee, Angus King, an independent from Maine, said recently,“I am leaning toward ‘yes,’ but I am not fully there.”