DiFi / CIA / Democracy

What about that Panetta Review report? And what about our three-branch democracy?  Some reports are calling this a Constitutional crisis.

As almost a side note, it is very clear now that there are things in those deleted CIA files that the CIA and the White House are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to hide. Recall that the CIA destroyed without punishment or sanction video tapes of the torture sessions.

Feinstein said “The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detentions sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us” and emphasized that her committee’s report would detail “the horrible details of the CIA program that never, never, never should have existed.”

It is likely the files the CIA pulled out of the Senate’s hands would reveal two presidents have lied to the world about the torture program, and that horrors beyond what we know were committed in our names. What did they do to other humans?

[...]

What is happening here is a Constitutional crisis. If Feinstein does not have CIA Director Brennan up before her Senate committee immediately, and if she does not call for his resignation and if the president remains silent (“We need to allow Justice to complete its investigation”) then we have witnessed the essential elements of a coup; at the very least, the collapse of the third of the government charged with oversight of the executive. That oversight– those Constitutional checks and balances– are the difference between a democracy and a monarchy. They are what contains executive power and makes it responsible to the People.

  We Meant Well

Executive Privilege taken to its logical conclusion.

The only question remaining then is whether the president is part of the coup, or another victim of it. Is he in charge, or are the intelligence agencies? We may have an answer soon. -

[...]

[WH Spokesperson Jay] Carney [claimed that] Obama administration lawyers were told about the CIA’s intentions to have the Department of Justice investigate Senate staffers for potentially stealing classified documents they sought to hold on to after the CIA tried to delete them but did not approve or weigh in on the agency’s decision. One must ask: why the f*ck not?

[...]

What the president does will tell us much about the future of our democracy. As radio host Guillermo Jimenez has said, “On this Grand Chessboard, it is We the People who are now in check. It’s our move.”

Well, after we see what the useless Senate does.

Does the President even recognize the seriousness of the situation? Has anyone told him? Or is he aware and simply confident that the CIA and executive privilege can make it all go away?

By the way, Barry Eisler (John Rain novels) wrote a very good thriller in 2010 fictionalizing what may have happened around the destruction of those torture tapes.  "Inside Out"

I think I'll read it again.  (FYI, Kindle edition is a bargain $3.99)