DOJ Tells Court It Hasn't Even Opened CIA Torture Report... After Telling Reporters It Read The Whole Thing

from the YOU-TOO-CAN-SUPPORT-THIS-LIE-ON-LESS-THAN-A-CONUNDRUM-A-DAY! dept

I don't care who you are (even, say… the government), but if you're going to tell two different versions of a story, it helps to not have both in print and publicly available.



Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation caught the DOJ spinning two different yarns for two different entities about its familiarity with the CIA Torture Report.



DOJ told NYT they read the full torture report. http://t.co/euLgn20u3l Then, DOJ swore in court they didn't. http://t.co/Lw0fjrEe2d Huh? — Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) February 3, 2015

DOJ told NYT they read the full torture report



Then, DOJ swore in court they didn't.



Huh?

The Justice Department said in a statement on Tuesday that its investigators had looked at the full version of the Senate Intelligence Committee report “and did not find any new information that they had not previously considered in reaching their determination,” adding that Mr. Durham’s “inquiry was extraordinarily thorough and we stand by our previously announced decision not to initiate criminal charges.”

"None of the defendant agencies have freely used the Full Report; they have kept it stored in a [sensitive compartmented information facility], with limited access," the government’s declaration reads. "Neither [the Department of Justice] nor [the Department of State], moreover, has even opened the package with the disc containing the full Report. And CIA and [the Department of Defense] have carefully limited access to and made only very limited use of the Report."

against

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

If you can't see the tweet, it says:Included were links to the source material. In arguing for the continued withholding of the full version of the CIA report from the NYT, here's the DOJ telling the paper of record one thing And here it is in court, defending its withholding of the report from a different FOIA requester In both cases, the DOJ is justifying continued secrecy, but in only one case does it claim to be intimately familiar with the subject matter. So, which version of the DOJ's story is true? One would hope the declaration before the court would be the truthful statement, but you know what they say about "wishing with one hand." By the time you've worked your way through that process, your faith in the government dies a little more and you've defecated in your own hand -- neither of which are pleasant outcomes.The only certainty here is that the DOJ will say whatever it wants to say in order to further its position. And that position is: shut up and stop asking . We're not going to let you see the full Torture Report. Another powerful blowfor government secrecy has been struck by the Most Transparent Administration in History. You may now continue your wholly sarcastic chants of "USA! USA! USA!"

Filed Under: cia, doj, lies, torture report