As reported by Dan Froomkin in the Intercept:
Soon-to-be ex-Senator Mark Udall is being urged to follow Mike Gravel's Pentagon Papers example, by using the
absolute free-speech right for members of Congress on the floor or in committee, even if they are disclosing classified material
While Mike Gravel urges Udall to sacrifice his DC-insider status (as
Gravel himself did in 1972), in the face of
Senate ... rules that make disclosing classified information punishable by “censure, removal from committee membership, or expulsion from the Senate”
...in order to serve the public interest in pre-empting, or at least watering down, the impending final cover-up of the Senate's CIA torture report,
...Dianne Feinstein, as chair of the relevant committee, should not be let off the hook.
If Udall doubles down on his previous courageous unilateral actions in pursuit of publicly disclosing this report, and if DiFi fails to back him up, then her moral failure should be called out for its historic importance.
Alan Grayson's tagline "A Congressman With Guts" has long been the only part of Grayson's political profile that I did not like, perhaps because "Guts" is so policy-free and subjective. But, as we digest another failure of national Democratic leaders, attributable in large part to lacking the courage of their (stated) convictions, I am coming around to Grayson's implicit message that "Guts" is exactly what is most needed now by Democratic Senators -- and Presidential candidates.
Attention DailyKos commenters:
In anticipation of some comments being reflexively respectful of the CIA's (or the White House's) resistance to disclosure, I remind all readers of the following:
1. Once a report has gone through as many government offices as this one has, its contents are likely to be known:
(a) not only to many current and former US governmental officeholder, employees and contractors, but
(b) also to the intelligence agencies of China, Russia, Israel, etc., and to whomever any of these entities decide to share them with, whether for reasons of ideology, realpolitik, bureaucratic advantage, money or other self-aggrandizement.
2. Most of the world already assumes the worst, and only wonders about our honesty to ourselves. In this context, how can it be in the national interest to 'protect' US voters from the uncomfortable truth of what has been done in their name -- and one of the biggest real reasons...
"... Why They Hate Us"