War of Words Between Sen. Dianne Feinstein and CIA Is Empty Rhetoric

"If history is any guide, expect the Senate/CIA flap to now quickly smooth over; the report on the Bush-era detention and torture practices at the center of the controversy to be buried, or released publicly in a whitewashed form; and all those accused of subverting our Constitutional process to be awarded accommodations and/or provided golden parachutes and lucrative private-sector employment."

The NarcoSphere

Richard Horn Case Proves CIA Deception, Ultimate Congressional Acquiescence Are Business As Usual

The current flap between the CIA and US Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), echoes a prior, little-known dust-up between the spy agency and a former DEA agent, Richard Horn, who likewise accused the CIA of illegal spying, manipulating official documents and lying to outside official parties.

In the case of Feinstein and the SSCI, the flap is over the Senate committee’s investigation into the detention and interrogation practices utilized under the Bush administration in pursuing the so-called war on terrorism.


Earlier this week, Feinstein, normally a staunch defender of the nation’s intelligence agencies, uncharacteristically lashed out publicly at the CIA. She accused the agency and its top lawyer of illegally spying on the Senate staff charged with investigating the Bush-era terrorism practices, of seeking to intimidate the Senate committee by asking the Justice Department to investigate those same staffers based on what she describes as “inaccurate information” provided to the Justice Department, and of previously removing hundreds of documents from the computers being used by Senate staff.
Although Feinstein did not publicly identify the CIA lawyer accused of orchestrating the alleged attack on the Senate staff — via his referral of charges to DOJ — White House spokesman Jay Carney this week confirmed that it was Acting CIA General Counsel Robert Eatinger.

The Senate staff were utilizing secure computers set up by the CIA that allowed them to examine millions of documents to prepare a report on the terrorism-detention and interrogation program — a still-classified, 6,000-plus page report supposedly completed late last year. At the heart of the conflict, according to media reports, is a document discovered by the Senate staffers during its investigation of the CIA records that allegedly is quite damaging to the agency in its revelations about the detention and interrogation practices.

The CIA alleges the Senate staffers illegally hacked into CIA computers to obtain the document — creating the basis for Eatinger’s request for a DOJ criminal investigation. Senate staffers maintain the document in question was contained in trove of records made available to them by CIA for examination – whether on purpose or by accident is not clear.

Ironically, CIA attorney Eatinger, the public focus of Sen. Feinstein’s ire, was at the heart of some of the alleged abuses involving the Bush-era detention and interrogation program. He was one of the attorneys who provided “legal” sanction for the destruction of 92 videotapes of interrogations of al-Qaida suspects.

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