Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office took to Twitter to offer real-time rebuttals as CIA Director John Brennan responded to her committee’s report in a news conference in which he defended his agency. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein wasn’t going to let CIA Director John Brennan have the last word.

As Brennan gave a news conference Thursday to address the agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) detailed this week in Feinstein’s devastating Senate Intelligence Committee report, the senator’s staff unleashed a torrent of tweets to rebut him. After each point sent from Feinstein’s official account was a hashtag encouraging followers to read the 6,700-page report.

Her office says her staff was sending the fact-checking tweets, but Feinstein (D-Calif.) was there watching the news conference live.

Feinstein’s unprecedented, real-time takedown of the head of the CIA included retorts such as “Brennan: ‘unknowable’ if we could have gotten the intel other ways. Study shows it IS knowable: CIA had info before torture. #ReadTheReport.”

And “Study definitively proves EITs did not lead to bin Laden. Page 378. #ReadTheReport.”

In case you’re not on the Bidens’ mailing list, here’s a peek at the family’s holiday card, which revisits a summer vacation in Wyoming. (David Lienemann/ )

Okay, okay. We’ll read it.

Joey B, still afloat

It’s a holiday card that makes a statement. It says: “Listen up, America. Hold on tight. We’ve had a bumpy ride, but I’ve got this.”

Your party wiped out in two consecutive midterm elections? Lifelong policy initiatives (high-speed rail?) stymied or crushed? Your political aspirations hanging on someone else’s hard choices? All rough.

But Vice President Biden can handle a little choppy water.

The Biden family’s card features the whole 13-member clan piled in a raft on the (looks to be serious Class 4) white waters of the Snake River in Wyoming, according to the veep’s office. The vice president is smack in the middle holding on to either one of his grandkids or the boat.

(The picture was taken during his August vacation in Jackson Hole, site of the Brinkerhoff, that government-owned log cabin. His stay there spurred some scrutiny, but we won’t rehash it. It’s Christmastime, after all.)

Post investigative reporter Dana Priest, whose reporting on CIA secret prisons won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize, discusses what the Senate's searing interrogation report means for national security. (Julie Percha and Rebecca Schatz/The Washington Post)

Why this picture? “The vice president couldn’t take all of his grandkids for a ride in a Corvette, and this was the next best option,” his office said.

And the metaphor works. Unless it was a subtle pre-2016 reference to Whitewater?

Drone roundup

At a congressional hearing Wednesday, one congressman revealed what he’s asking Santa for this year: Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) wants his very own drone.

“I’ve got a quadcopter on my Christmas list, as I suspect quite a few people do,” Farenthold told Peggy Gilligan, the Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator for aviation safety.

These aerial robots are used primarily to take photos from above. Commercially sold “unmanned aerial vehicles” are increasingly popular — you can buy one online for as little as $32 or as much as $900 — but the FAA has been slow to develop regulations to ensure they are operated safely. Our colleague Craig Whitlock, who covered the House Transportation and Infrastructure hearing on commercial drone security, wrote that there is concern the small devices could hit a plane, causing an accident.

The FAA, which has imposed some prohibitions while it works on broader regulations, is finding it difficult to regulate drone use.

In other drone news, a New York reporter probably wishes there were tighter regulations. Chain restaurant TGI Fridays had the inspired idea to fly a drone with a mistletoe around its restaurant in Brooklyn to encourage patrons to kiss. Which was all sweet and nice until the drone lost control and hit a Brooklyn Daily photographer, slicing her nose and chin.

According to the newspaper, the drone operator was unfazed. “If people get hurt, they’re going to come regardless. People get hurt in airplanes, they still fly,” David Quiones said. “There is a risk involved — anything flying, there is risk.”

But seriously, congressman, if you get your Christmas wish, be careful.

Cases closed

Speaking of Christmas wishes, these four lawmakers probably can stop paying their attorneys.

The House Ethics Committee released its findings on four cases Thursday, a day when few were really paying attention.

Everyone on Capitol Hill is focused on squeezing months worth of work into several days, so the panel’s decision to clear two members and reprove two others was like an end-of-the-year document dump.

Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) received “letters of reproval,” the congressional equivalent of a slap on the wrist or a tsk-tsk. Reps. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) were cleared of wrongdoing. Gingrey and Petri are both leaving Congress.

Chu was publicly shamed for interfering in an investigation into whether her staff had done campaign work while on official time.

Gingrey received his letter of shame for arranging meetings with government officials and staff for a bank outside his district where Gingrey had financial interests.

Petri was cleared of allegations that his advocacy to the Defense Department on behalf of a large contractor in his district, in which he owned stock, was a conflict of interest.

Hastings, also cleared, had been accused of sexually harassing a female staff member on the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, commonly referred to as the Helsinki Commission. The committee did not have enough evidence to substantiate her claims, though Hastings did admit to once telling her “that he had difficulty sleeping after sex.”

And for all a long night

And speaking of Capitol Hill dysfunction, our colleagues who cover Congress spent most of Thursday waiting to see whether there would be enough votes to keep the government from shutting down. Again.

Our colleague Jackie Kucinich summed up the spirit expertly with a little holiday rhyme: “ ’Twas the day before shutdown and all through the House . . . not a creature was voting because . . . it’s the House.”

— With Colby Itkowitz

Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz