WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, CIA Director John Brennan stood firm in his insistence that the CIA had little to be ashamed of after searching the computers of the Senate Intelligence Committee. His defiant posture quickly collapsed after a devastating report by his own inspector general sided against the CIA on each key point of the dispute with the Senate.
According to an unclassified summary of the report released Thursday, five agency employees — two lawyers and three computer specialists— improperly accessed Intelligence Committee computers earlier this year during a disagreement over interrogation documents. Then, despite Brennan ordering a halt to that operation, the CIA’s office of security began an unauthorized investigation that led it to review the emails of Senate staffers and search them for key words.
