Yup, John Brennan Rolled DiFi on the Torture Report
The 15th paragraph of this story on CIA’s continuing efforts to water down the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report reads,
The CIA’s current director, John Brennan, was a senior agency official when the harshest CIA tactics were in use. Officials said that in closed-door meetings with Congress, he complained the Senate report contained major inaccuracies.
It is utterly predictable that Brennan, who refused to read the report before he got confirmed, would, after he was confirmed, decide it was inaccurate. See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for just some of the bread crumbs this would happen.
Since I was right about John Brennan being completely untrustworthy about bringing an open mind to the evidence presented in the Torture Report, let me make another prediction based on this detail.
Committee aides said the panel hoped to finish work on an updated version of the report, taking note of CIA comments, by the end of the year. The committee could then vote to request declassification, which would allow the public to see the report, or at least parts of it.
What’s going to happen is the SSCI will water down the report, ignoring the clear implications of the evidence, in hopes of getting support for declassification. The Republicans on the committee, at least, still won’t vote to declassify it. Some section of the watered-down report will be released. And the historical record on torture will not reflect the clear evidence in the documentary record.
Dianne Feinstein could, of course, move to declassify the report in its current state.
But she won’t do that, and John Brennan knows it. You see, he knows DiFi wants to be loved by the spooks she oversees, and they could care less what she thinks of them, so long as they continue to hide the true nature of their organizations. And her desire to be loved by those she oversees makes her an easy mark.
The prequel to this Sunday’s 60 Minutes “Ode to our glorious NSA” – A deal for Snowden? – http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-deal-for-snowden/
The “get” with 60 Minutes was likely received with cheers and applause by the private and public patriots running the “Down with Snowden-Greenwald/Up with the NSA” Information Operation.
Again, why is Brennan still employed by the gummint and not in jail? He bombed another wedding party today, this time in Yemen, and as you point out is actively suppressing the Senate torture report. Time to send him to jail.
It’s too bad Snowden didn’t get his hands on the report. Heh. It’s sad when we live in a world where my first thought is, “I hope someone leaks that.”
I’m not disagreeing with your last paragraph, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. DiFi also wants to be loved by the Village Media and acknowledged as The Most Powerful Woman on Capitol Hill, if not all of DC. Thus, Brennan likely made his pitch by saying “As long as you go along with us, and we don’t raise a stink, the VM will think you are the Truly Wise Woman in this town.”
And as long as we’re making predictions, I predict the sun will come up in the east tomorrow. That’s as likely a prediction as yours.
@Jim White: Brennan was put into the directorship precisely to do what he is doing now. Feinstein is not acting much differently than the compliant intel oversight agencies have done since practically their creation.
Besides, the history of Congressional investigations shows that they are meant to end inquiry, not assist it. For a close-up example from an insider as to how that works, read Gaeton Fonzi’s “The Last Investigation.”
DiFi takes heart from the continuing “goddess status” of Pelosi, who had the wisdom and insight to announce “impeachment is off the table” for the truly stunning and insightful reason that there was at the time only a two year election cycle (oh, and all the time there’s a two year election cycle, but no matter) so it would be “disruptive” to enforce the Constitution. And Pelosi is still (a) there and (b) respected, so why should DiFi feel compelled to do anything about Brennan or the NSA? She can attract a camera at any time, the limos flow like water, her and her husband’s business interests are thriving, what’s to change?