WASHINGTON – The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday accused the CIA 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.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said on the Senate floor the agency had violated federal law and undermined Congress’ constitutional right to oversee the actions of the executive branch.
“I am not taking it lightly,” she said.
John O. Brennan, the CIA director, denied Feinstein’s assertions.
“We wouldn’t do that,” Brennan said in response to questions from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
“We weren’t trying to block anything,” Brennan said. “The matter is being dealt with in an appropriate way.”
He added the CIA was in no way spying on the committee or the Senate.
Feinstein leveled the new charge as part of a lengthy public recounting of the years of jousting between her committee and the CIA over the legacy of the detention program, which President Barack Obama officially ended in January 2009.
The disclosure comes a week after the first reports that the CIA late last year had carried out a separate search of computers used by her staff. The CIA said it carried out the search to uncover how the committee gained access to an internal review of the detention program cited by Democratic lawmakers critical of the program.
Calling the present conflict a “defining moment” for the oversight of U.S. spy agencies, Feinstein denied committee staff members had obtained the internal review improperly. She said the internal document had been made available as part of the millions of pages of documents that the agency had given the committee to conduct its investigation.
The CIA has referred the matter to the Justice Department to investigate possible wrongdoing, a move that Feinstein called “a potential effort to intimidate this staff.”
In her speech, Feinstein for the first time revealed that in 2010 the CIA had removed documents from the computer system used by her staff at an agency facility in Northern Virginia.
It was unclear Tuesday what specific documents were removed in 2010.
