President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their administration ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to torture people.
The CIA tortured people.
Not "used enhanced interrogation techniques on detainees." T-O-R-T-U-R-E-D people.
The CIA destroyed evidence of torture.
President Obama decided not to ever prosecute any torturers. He called some of them "real patriots," even.
The Obama administration did prosecute those who revealed torturers.
The CIA lied to Congress about torture.
The CIA conducted a clandestine operation upon Senate investigators' computers to destroy more evidence.
The CIA tried to get the Senate investigators criminally indicted for espionage for having the evidence the CIA gave them.
The CIA redacted the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence torture report into uselessness.
The CIA stalled long enough—for a decade since the original crimes—for the Democrats to lose the chairmanship of the committee and for the Republicans, who will quash the investigation entirely, to gain it.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's 6,000-page torture report has already been complete for some time.
The Senate can decide to release the report unilaterally, any time it likes.
Senators pretend not to have this power. They claim they have no choice but to let the CIA redact it.
The Democrats have control of the Senate through the end of session, in the "lame-duck" period.
Will they do the country a great service and release the report, in full, while they still have the power—and responsibility to the public—to do so? Sen. Feinstein, as Committee Chair? Sen. Udall (on his way out of office after losing the election) or Sen. Wyden, on his own?
Ha. Very funny.
:: ::
Many thanks to emptywheel for her incredibly dogged and thorough reporting on this issue.
UPDATE Nov. 5:
Mark Udall's loss is a blow for privacy, but he can go out with a bang: 'leak' the CIA torture report
The outgoing Senator and champion of civil liberties has one last chance to read the truth about American atrocities out loud, for the world to see – before it’s too late
By Trevor Timm, The Guardian, 5 November 2014