Dan Froomkin — CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis

Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a floor speech (transcript; video) that Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) immediately called the most important he had heard in his career, said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them.

“I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”

She concluded: “The recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community. How Congress responds and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee. I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States.”

She also accused the CIA of obstructing her committee’s torture inquiry in general, and of disputing findings that its own internal inquiry had substantiated.

The Intercept
CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis
Dan Froomkin

Juicy.

It's also dicey for President Obama. If he does not respond correctly to this, he could see himself successfully impeached for it and removed from office, if the GOP retakes the Senate next year. The Right is very anxious to impeach this president on any suitable pretext of wrongdoing. However, the fact that proceedings might expose the involvement of the Bush Administration in an illegal torture program would make it a touch choice for them.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”

Collision course.

Personally, I would like to see all involved in torture or approving it in a dock at the Hague going all the way back to the Nixon administration. Torture and assassination has long been a policy of the United States, either directly by US nationals, or indirectly by outsourcing it to complicit or puppet regimes.