President Barack Obama called for release of a report on past CIA interrogation techniques that is at the heart of a dispute between the agency and the Senate on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Accusations of misconduct between the Senate and the CIA have been referred to the "appropriate authorities and they are looking into it," Obama told reporters, declining further comment on any investigation, the AP reported.
President Obama said the important thing is informing the public about the Senate's investigation into past CIA activities in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the AP reported.
"I would urge them to go ahead and complete the report and send it to us and we will declassify those findings so that the American people can understand what happened in the past," Obama said, according to the AP. "And that can help guide us as we move forward."
Document disclosures involved in the Senate's investigation of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques helped provoke an extraordinary dispute between a prominent senator and CIA Director John Brennan that went public on Tuesday.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and said CIA officials improperly, and maybe even illegally, removed documents from Senate computers, according to the AP.
In return, the CIA has accused Senate staff members of improperly obtaining classified documents, the AP reported. It referred that claim to the Justice Department as well, an action that Feinstein described as an effort to intimidate the committee over its investigation into CIA actions, the AP reported.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the CIA gave the White House a routine "heads up" about Justice Department referrals, but "there was no comment, there was no weighing in, there was no judgement" by any White House official, according to the AP.
"The president wants the findings declassified appropriately, as quickly as possible, and for those findings to be made public," Carney said, the AP reported. At this point, he said, "the substantive issue" is how to address threats to the nation in a way that is "consistent with the rule of law and our values."
The Senate Intelligence Committee has completed an initial report that is critical of CIA officials, but the CIA is objecting to parts of the Senate report, according to the AP.
In his appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations, Brennan said the nation owes it "to the women and men who faithfully did their duty in executing this program to try to make sure that any historical record of it is a balanced and accurate one," the AP reported.
As for investigations, Brennan said that "when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking (of the Senate) will be proved wrong," according to the AP.
In her Senate floor speech Tuesday, Feinstein said she also wants release of the report to help insure "that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted," the AP reported.
