Senate Democrats and 9/11 amnesia

The RDI program, including the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, was fully briefed to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees. The Senate committee’s new report does not present any evidence that would support the notion that the CIA program was carried out for years without the concurrence of the House or Senate intelligence committees, or that any of the members were shocked to learn of the program after the fact.

Facts matter, including the fact that the Senate committee’s Democratic majority failed to interview the three CIA directors and three deputy directors, or any other CIA employee for that matter, who had briefed them about the program and carried it out.

Such a glaring investigative lapse cannot be fairly explained by the Democratic majority’s defense that it could make such crucial findings solely on the “paper record,” without interviewing the critical players. Nor does the committee’s other explanation for avoiding interviews make sense: The Democratic senators say they didn’t want to interfere with the Justice Department’s criminal inquiry into the RDI program, but that investigation ended in 2012 and found no basis for prosecutions. And no wonder: These public servants at the CIA had dutifully carried out mandates from the president and Congress.

CIA leaders and briefers who regularly updated this program to the Senate Intelligence Committee leadership took what investigators call “copious, contemporaneous notes.”