2013 President Obama announces appointments
of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan
Ali Watkins, of
McClathcy's Washington Bureau writes
New sparks fly between CIA, Senate Intelligence Committee. In a closed door session CIA Director John Brennen continued to refuse to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee.
WASHINGTON — Tensions between the CIA and its congressional overseers erupted anew this week when CIA Director John Brennan refused to tell lawmakers who authorized intrusions into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to compile a damning report on the spy agency’s interrogation program.
“I’m concerned there’s disrespect towards the Congress,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who also serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told McClatchy. “I think it’s arrogant, I think it’s unacceptable.”
“I continue to be incredibly frustrated with this director,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. “He does not respect the role of the committee in providing oversight, and he continues to stonewall us on basic information, and it’s very frustrating. And it certainly doesn’t serve the agency well.”
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said he was “renewing my call” for Brennan’s resignation.
I have no idea why the Senate has not already charged Director Brennan with lying under oath after he testified that the CIA was not spying on Senators and staffers and then having to apologize after evidence came out showing he had lied.
The Senate oversight committee has a constitutional obligation to oversee the actions of the executive branch so Brennan's refusal to cooperate is not trivial matter.
Brennen's defiance is extra galling as one notices that all three quotes above are from Democratic Senators having to criticize a Democratic President's CIA director. President Obama's direction of our intelligence function has the most disappointing aspect of his presidency.
In a climate where the NSA and many of the other arms of our vast intelligence function seem to ignore the constitution at every opportunity the Senate should come down hard on Director Brennen's defiance as a symbolic gesture that Senators have not forgotten their oath of office.