Private apologies are not enough for a defender of torture, the architect of America’s drone program

from Trevor Timm at the Guardian:

CIA director John Brennan lied to you and to the Senate. Fire him

____ As reports emerged Thursday that an internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general found that the CIA “improperly” spied on US Senate staffers when researching the CIA’s dark history of torture, it was hard to conclude anything but the obvious: John Brennan blatantly lied to the American public. Again.

. . . That spying scandal, as well as the one Brennan has actually owned up to, both spawn from the Senate’s damning 6,000-page report on CIA torture, part of which is supposed to be publicly released any day now. The document will serve as yet another reminder that Brennan, when he worked in the CIA during the Bush years, supported many of the barbaric techniques used on prisoners after 9/11, which the Obama administration claims to oppose.

Brennan’s one-time torture endorsement made a newly elected President Obama pass him over when the CIA director job was open in 2009. But failing upwards has been a Langley specialty over the past decade. As the Associated Press has documented, many agency officials involved in the CIA’s worst human rights abuses and intelligence disasters have not only be shielded from punishment, but promoted. In 2013, after a signature drone strike-filled stint as Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor, Brennan was successfully confirmed as CIA director.

Almost immediately, members of the Senate intelligence committee started accusing Brennan of dragging his feet and stalling on the CIA’s response to the torture report behind closed doors, even as he told them in public he was doing everything he could to move it right along. Just this week, the New York Times reported how Brennan’s been colluding with his close friend and former CIA director George Tenet, all the while keeping him closely apprised of the redaction process of the report’s release (which, bizarrely, the CIA has been allowed to lead).

After the CIA inspector general’s report completely contradicted Brennan’s statements, it now appears Brennan was forced to privately apologize to intelligence committee chairs in a “tense” meeting earlier this week. Other Senators on Thursday pushed for Brennan to publicly apologize and called for an independent investigation. Sen. Ron Wyden said it well:

.@CIA broke into Senate computer files. Then tried to have Senate staff prosecuted. Absolutely unacceptable in a democracy.
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014