Mark Udall just wrote Obama a sometimes cryptic letter asking him to commit to declassifying the Senate Intelligence Report torture report. In it, he:
- Asserts a significant amount of what has been declassified about the torture program is “misleading and inaccurate”
- Asks for more information about what led to the development of the CIA report
- Asks why the findings of the CIA report were not included in CIA’s (John Brennan’s) response to the torture report
- Suggests CIA is withholding the final version of the internal CIA report that corroborates many of SSCI’s report (it has provided a draft)
- Says he will hold Caroline Krass’ nomination to be CIA General Counsel
But I’m particularly interested in this oblique comment:
As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the Committee in relation to the internal CIA review, and I find those actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight responsibilities and for our democracy. It is essential that the Committee be able to do its oversight work — consistent with our constitutional principle of the separation of powers — without the CIA posing impediments or obstacles as it is today.
“Unprecedented” is a pretty strong word.
Senator Udall’s office was unable to offer more clarity about this unprecedented action.
Updated: Changed the title because it implied Udall was saying this unprecedented action was about covering up torture, which is more than he said.