WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Three US Senators requested an apology from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan for spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to a letter signed by US Senators Ron Wyden, Mazie Hirono, and Martin Heinrich.
“In January 2014, the CIA conducted an unauthorized and unprecedented search of Senate files, including the e-mails and other files of Senate investigators examining the CIA’s past use of torture,” the Senators wrote on Friday.
The letter continued, “We call on you to acknowledge that this search was improper, and commit that these unacceptable actions will not be repeated.”
Brennan denied that the CIA had improperly accessed the Senate files after Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein alleged the CIA had been spying on the Committee.
The CIA’s actions undermined the public confidence in senior intelligence officials to “respect US laws and the Constitution,” Senators Wyden, Hirono, and Heinrich wrote. The Senators also denounced Brennan’s conduct as “entirely unacceptable.”
The CIA access to the Senate files took place at the conclusion of a multiple year Intelligence Committee investigation into CIA’s practice of torture during the War on Terror.
The Intelligence Committee produced a 6,000 page final report on CIA torture practices and released a shorter, heavily redacted executive summary in December 2014.
Brennan opposed the release of the Senate report and denounced its findings as flawed.
