Timeline: The Tortured History of the Senate’s Torture Report

Updated on

The president says he will not “wade into” the dispute between the committee and the CIA.

March 19, 2014

Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, writes to Brennan and Holder to notify them that the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms will investigate charges that the CIA accessed the committee’s computer network.

March 31, 2014

The Washington Post details the main conclusion of the committee’s report: that the CIA repeatedly and deliberately lied to Congress about torture.

clostThe committee votes to declassify the summary of the report.

April 3, 2014

The report is now more than 6,200 pages, and the executive summary is 481 pages. The committee votes 11-3 to declassify the executive summary and conclusions.

Now it’s up to the CIA to complete its declassification review. The White House says the process will be expedited. Feinstein anticipates it will take just one more month.

April 11, 2014

McClatchy publishes the report’s findings. Among them: torture was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence, the CIA repeatedly misled the Department of Justice, and CIA employees used “interrogation techniques” that had not been approved by CIA headquarters or the Justice Department.

Feinstein says she is opening a new investigation to find out who leaked the findings. “If someone distributed any part of this classified report, they broke the law and should be prosecuted,” she says. “The committee is investigating this unauthorized disclosure, and I intend to refer the matter to the Department of Justice.”

Udall writes to President Obama, asking that the White House oversee the declassification process instead of the CIA.

July 31, 2014

CIA acknowledges that, despite Brennan’s earlier denial about what he called “spurious allegations,” the agency did in fact spy on Senate investigators. An internal agency review found that CIA officers created a false online identity to access to computers used by the investigators and read their emails. The review also said that when CIA officers were first asked about the spying, they showed a “lack of candor.”

Leave a Comment