BLOCKBUSTER CLAIM BY DEMOCRAT SENATOR: Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee

by John Hawkins | March 6, 2014 2:14 am

IF THIS IS TRUE, impeachment hearings should begin immediately[1].

A leading US senator has said that President Obama knew of an “unprecedented action” taken by the CIA against the Senate intelligence committee, which has apparently prompted an inspector general’s inquiry at Langley.

The subtle reference in a Tuesday letter from Senator Mark Udall to Obama, seeking to enlist the president’s help in declassifying a 6,300-page inquiry by the committee into torture carried out by CIA interrogators after 9/11, threatens to plunge the White House into a battle between the agency and its Senate overseers.

McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings.

Udall, a Colorado Democrat and one of the CIA’s leading pursuers on the committee, appeared to reference that surreptitious spying on Congress, which Udall said undermined democratic principles.

“As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight powers and for our democracy,” Udall wrote to Obama on Tuesday.

Independent observers were unaware of a precedent for the CIA spying on the congressional committees established in the 1970s to check abuses by the intelligence agencies.

“In the worst case, it would be a subversion of independent oversight, and a violation of separation of powers,” said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. “It’s potentially very serious.”

…McClatchy reported that the CIA inspector general has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, a threshold procedure for opening a criminal investigation.

…Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and ex officio member of the intelligence committee, said the alleged monitoring was potentially “extremely serious.”

“If, as alleged in the media, CIA accessed without permission or authority a computer network dedicated for use by a Senate committee, it would be an extremely serious matter. Such activity, if it occurred as alleged, would impede Congress’ ability to carry out its constitutional oversight responsibilities and could violate federal law,” Levin said in a statement on Wednesday.

You hear a lot of “jokes” about Obama belonging in prison, but if these charges are true and he didn’t immediately order it stopped, he does belong in prison. Using the CIA to spy on the Senate is all kinds of illegal and EVERYONE INVOLVED IN IT from top to bottom would have known that from day one. If this turns out to be true and there are DEMOCRATS IN THE SENATE making the allegation, it’s the beginning of the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Also see,

Fed-Up Navy Veteran Forewarned Conn. Lawmakers on Gun Registration: ‘I’m Telling You Right Now, I Will Not Comply’ (Video)[2]

Endnotes:
  1. impeachment hearings should begin immediately: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/obama-cia-senate-intelligence-committee-torture
  2. Fed-Up Navy Veteran Forewarned Conn. Lawmakers on Gun Registration: ‘I’m Telling You Right Now, I Will Not Comply’ (Video): https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/uncategorized/fed-up-navy-veteran-forewarned-conn-lawmakers-on-gun-registration-im-telling-you-right-now-i-will-not-comply-video/

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