John Brennan Faces Calls to Resign After CIA Admits to Spying on Senate Torture Probe — Transcript

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1. 0:00Central Intelligence Agency director
2. 0:01John Brennan is facing calls to resign
3. 0:03after admitting C CIA officials spied on
4. 0:06a senate panel probing the agency's
5. 0:08torture and rition program the
6. 0:09allegation surfaced in March when
7. 0:11members of the Senate intelligence
8. 0:12committee openly accused CIA officials
9. 0:14of illegally monitoring their staffers
10. 0:16computers at the time John Brennan
11. 0:18denied the spying allegations and said
12. 0:19those who make them will be proved
13. 0:21wrong as the allegations of you know CIA
14. 0:25hacking into you know Senate computers
15. 0:27nothing could be further from the truth
16. 0:28I mean we wouldn't do that I mean that's
17. 0:30that's that's just beyond the the uh you
18. 0:33know the scope of of Reason in terms of
19. 0:35what we would do when the facts come out
20. 0:36on this I think a lot of people who are
21. 0:38claiming that there has been this
22. 0:40tremendous sort of spying and monitoring
23. 0:42and hacking will be proved uh wrong well
24. 0:46CIA director John Brennan reversed his
25. 0:48stance this week after an internal CIA
26. 0:50inquiry found the spying indeed took
27. 0:53place with the involvement of 10 agency
28. 0:55employees Brennan apologized to
29. 0:58lawmakers in a briefing earlier this
30. 0:59week the ca has also retracted counter
31. 1:02allegations that Senate staffers
32. 1:03illegally remove classified information
33. 1:05from a top secret facility the White
34. 1:07House is standing by Brennan citing
35. 1:09President Obama's quote great confidence
36. 1:11in his leadership but at least two
37. 1:13members of the Senate intelligence
38. 1:15committee Democrats Mark Udall of
39. 1:16Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New
40. 1:18Mexico are calling for Brennan's
41. 1:20resignation we're joined by the reporter
42. 1:22who first broke the news of the cia's
43. 1:24admission to spying on Senate computers
44. 1:26Jonathan land senior National Security
45. 1:28and intelligence correspondent from
46. 1:29clatchy newspapers also in Washington DC
47. 1:33uh thanks for being with us uh talk
48. 1:35about this Revelation uh that you just
49. 1:38exposed so um after all of uh this what
50. 1:42had been this behind the scenes battle
51. 1:44unprecedented battle between uh the uh
52. 1:47CIA and its Senate overseers apparently
53. 1:50John Brennan asked his uh Inspector
54. 1:53General uh uh David Buckley to look into
55. 1:57Senator Feinstein's allegations that the
56. 1:59CIA had in fact uh U without
57. 2:03authorization and in breach of an
58. 2:05agreement with the Senate staff had
59. 2:07intruded into a database that was for
60. 2:09the use by the Senate staff only
61. 2:12apparently his uh or his uh David
62. 2:14Buckley came back with his findings that
63. 2:17uh a number of CIA it Specialists three
64. 2:21it Specialists five uh CIA officers and
65. 2:25I believe it was two attorneys uh had in
66. 2:28fact either uh uh without permission
67. 2:31breached uh the Senate uh committee's
68. 2:33database or caused it to be breached uh
69. 2:36we also find out that the complaint that
70. 2:39the CIA uh referred to the justice
71. 2:41department uh that uh containing
72. 2:43allegations that the Senate staff had
73. 2:45without permission without authorization
74. 2:47removed top secret classified documents
75. 2:50from the secret CIA facility in which
76. 2:52they were doing their work was
77. 2:54apparently made on with on with a
78. 2:58incorrect information that the that it
79. 2:59was based it was not factually based so
80. 3:02that's gone away but although the CI uh
81. 3:04the justice department in fact had
82. 3:06dropped the case uh beginning of last
83. 3:09month although very interestingly this
84. 3:12the justice department said that it had
85. 3:13found no uh reason to proceed with a
86. 3:16criminal investigation or insufficient
87. 3:18evidence to proceed with a criminal
88. 3:19investigation at this time so it's
89. 3:22possible that the justice department
90. 3:24could take a new look at all of this um
91. 3:26we have to wait and see there have been
92. 3:28calls by some m of Congress and civil
93. 3:32civil rights organizations that the
94. 3:33justice department ought to take a new
95. 3:35look at uh what went on and you know the
96. 3:38the thing about all of this is that I
97. 3:40think President Obama the white house uh
98. 3:43staff the CIA a lot of people on Capitol
99. 3:46Hill had hoped to put this issue behind
100. 3:48them once uh the Senate uh intelligence
101. 3:51committee's report is issued and I don't
102. 3:54think this is going to go away anytime
103. 3:58soon