Brennan said in a memo to CIA employees that he’s 'committed to finding a way forward.' Feinstein-CIA feud in new territory

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s battle with the CIA has entered dangerous, uncharted territory.

Caught in the crossfire of the powerful California Democrat’s fight with the nation’s most recognized intelligence agency: America’s ability to manage multiple geopolitical hotspots, top national security nominations and senior Senate and CIA officials who could lose their jobs or possibly even end up in jail.


Managing relations between Congress and the intelligence community is always tricky — an outgrowth of closed-door oversight into sensitive national security issues where lawmakers often complain that they must ask the right questions to get the right answers.

But now that the Justice Department is involved in the dispute between Feinstein’s Intelligence Committee staff and the CIA — deciphering whether the CIA violated the Constitution or federal law by searching Senate computers, or whether Democratic staffers hacked into the CIA’s system to obtain classified documents — things have escalated to an unprecedented level.

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While President Barack Obama won’t take sides publicly for fear of interfering with a possible criminal matter, that hasn’t stopped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Nevada Democrat last week defended Feinstein, warning in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that the recent back-and-forth accusations she’s had with CIA Director John Brennan could have historic ramifications for constitutional separation of powers.

“Left unchallenged, they call into question Congress’s ability to carry out its core constitutional duties and risk the possibility of an unaccountable Intelligence Community run amok,” Reid wrote.

With no clear resolution in sight, Capitol Hill and the CIA are stuck in the awkward spot of trying to maintain business as usual, when the reality is it’s anything but.

“This is the most serious feud since the Intelligence committees were established,” said Amy Zegart, a former National Security Council staffer and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Most alarming, Zegart explained, is Feinstein’s Senate floor broadside earlier this month against the CIA. The senator’s remarks broke from her well-established reputation as a staunch defender of another wing of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency, amid scores of Edward Snowden-inspired leaks to the media.

“When someone who says they can be trusted now says they can’t, it’s really bad,” Zegart said.

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Brennan said in a Friday memo to CIA employees that he’s “committed to finding a way forward” with the Senate. And senior intelligence officials insist that tensions should ease once the committee can release a redacted version of the panel’s exhaustive five-year investigation into the George W. Bush-era CIA interrogation and detention programs. A vote to declassify the report is expected before the end of the month.

But even if a portion of the Senate’s investigation were to be made public, sources on and off Capitol Hill still caution that the bad blood will linger because of the harsh accusations exchanged over how Feinstein’s aides obtained an internal CIA analysis and the lines that the intelligence agency may have crossed to find out what they did.

Feinstein and Brennan are standing by their contradictory explanations of what happened in the course of the Democratic staff’s investigation into the Bush-era CIA programs. Absent a meeting of the minds, some say the only way for the chairwoman to save face is for Brennan to go.

“Those are bridges burned,” said former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who chaired the House Intelligence Committee.

“The real question it will come down to is whether Dianne Feinstein believes she can have a working relationship with John Brennan,” Hoekstra added. “And if she believes that relationship is beyond repair and it’s going to be difficult to rebuild that trust between the oversight committee and the CIA, … then there’s really only one alternative. And that’s Brennan has to step aside.”

Feinstein aides declined comment when asked about Brennan’s future, saying the senator’s 40-minute floor speech earlier this month speaks for itself — “for now.” At the conclusion of those remarks, Feinstein called the impasse a “defining moment for the oversight for our Intelligence Committee.”

“How Congress and how this will be resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee,” Feinstein said.

Senior members of the House and Senate intelligence panels are cautioning against jumping to conclusions on the Feinstein-CIA fight, though members from both sides of the aisle also expressed concern that it could still spiral out of control.

“Our oversight is alive and well and robust. That won’t change,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said in an interview. But the Michigan Republican also warned that the dispute needed to be resolved, and soon — otherwise there could be consequences.

“I think if this doesn’t get handled right in the next short period of time this has the potential of having other broader implications, and I hope it doesn’t get to that,” Rogers said.

“You don’t want everything to become adversarial,” he added. “The oversight will continue. If it’s adversarial or not, it will continue. It’s always better when both sides agree to a framework on what will be provided; otherwise, it becomes a subpoena exchange, and that’s just not helpful.”

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he’d never seen a dispute like the one between Feinstein and the CIA during his 12 years on the panel.

“When Sen. Feinstein has a concern, I think we must listen,” he told POLITICO. “These are serious allegations. If true, it has a chilling effect on all of our intelligence agencies, especially our two committees that oversee all of the intelligence agencies, including the CIA.”

In the absence of answers of what happened, several intelligence veterans said the Feinstein-CIA dispute is taking up lawmakers’ limited oxygen supply on complex issues ranging from Snowden’s revelations about government surveillance overreach to cybersecurity threats and tensions flaring in Ukraine, Syria, Egypt and other global hotspots.

“Having a broken relationship between the intelligence community and Congress is not a good place for us to be right now,” Hoekstra said. “When you’re spending your time fighting each other, you’re taking your eye off the ball.”

While calls for Brennan’s resignation so far have been limited, senior lawmakers haven’t been shy in expressing their displeasure with the situation.

Reid said the CIA’s allegations that Senate staff hacked into its classified computer system were “absurd” and ordered a Senate sergeant-at-arms review into how Feinstein’s staff got the at-issue document. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Feinstein’s allegations about the CIA’s efforts “Richard Nixon stuff,” adding, “This is dangerous to a democracy; heads should roll, people should go to jail, if it’s true.”

Another avenue where the Feinstein-CIA fallout may be felt: nominations.

The Senate surprised many when it voted to confirm Caroline Krass as CIA general counsel just two days after Feinstein’s bombshell floor speech. But there are still other high-profile Obama picks who are waiting for the Senate’s approval, including Vice Adm. Mike Rogers’ nomination to lead the Pentagon’s cyberwar unit. It’s an especially tempting appointment to block because Rogers would simultaneously assume the job of NSA director.

“That’s really a nuclear option,” Zegart said.

Elevating the dispute to the Justice Department also adds to the complexity. Holder told reporters last week he was still reviewing the allegations and hadn’t yet decided whether to launch a formal investigation.

“We get referrals all the time,” he said. “The fact that we get a referral does not necessarily mean we make a decision that we’re going to investigate on the basis of that referral.”

With a DOJ criminal case still possible, finding the right path for resolving the dispute gets trickier.

“The reality is this is pretty bad,” said George Jameson, a former CIA official who managed Capitol Hill-intelligence agency relations during part of the Bush administration. “If it’s under investigation, people are going to be less likely to tell their stories, certainly not without having their lawyers present.”

Brennan’s unclassified memo Friday said he’s working to resolve the dispute “that allows CIA to continue with its important intelligence mission and that promotes effective and independent Congressional oversight of our nation’s classified intelligence activities.”

“As we all well know, the intelligence profession is frequently a difficult and challenging one, and it should come as no surprise that many of the things CIA is asked to do are subjected to close scrutiny,” Brennan added. “Moreover, it is appropriate for the Intelligence Committees in the Senate and the House to carry out their oversight responsibilities thoroughly and comprehensively, and CIA needs to do all it can to assist the committees in that regard.”

Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff to Leon Panetta during his tenure leading the CIA and Defense Department, said relations between the intelligence agency and Congress are not as bad as the perception suggests.

“The way to resolve this is not for Brennan to step down, nor is it for any chairman to abdicate his or her responsibilities,” Bash said. “The way to resolve this is for the committee to finalize the report on interrogation, submit it for classification review and for the CIA to expeditiously release the report with appropriate redactions to protect sources and methods.”

Intelligence officials, Bash added, aren’t distracted by the fight either. He said they’re routinely escorting Hill staff and lawmakers on travel delegations and continue to conduct briefings on world affairs, including the Russia-Ukraine standoff.

“The committee and CIA are talking 100 times a day about 100 different issues,” said Bash, who also served as the Democratic chief counsel to the House Intelligence Committee. “This one element in one committee doesn’t have the power to derail the process of affecting oversight, nor do I think Sen. Feinstein wants that. She was pointing out a sincerely held concern about the way the computer records were handled. It’s a narrow issue in a longer, much broader sweep of committee equities.”

Feinstein’s made her point, showing that her panel has taken a “muscular approach” to oversight, said Michael Allen, a former George W. Bush White House aide and former House Intelligence Committee GOP staff director.

“It’s in the best interest of the committee to settle out with the CIA,” said Allen, a co-founder with Bash of the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies. “I think it’ll be in the interest of the committee, now that they’ve made their point to reach some sort of settlement with the CIA. It’s just a bad position for all involved if everyone’s at knife point.”

The Feinstein-CIA fight comes as Congress’ oversight of the intelligence communities faces sharp scrutiny in the aftermath of Snowden’s revelations. Last week, more than a dozen former aides who worked on the 1970s-era Senate select panel that investigated intelligence abuses — and leading to the creation of the current oversight committee structure — called for Congress to set up a new panel to conduct an inquiry into intelligence community overreach.

Add in the latest high-profile tussle, and concerns are high that Hill-intelligence agency relations are headed for a lengthy rough patch.

“It’d be ignorant to assume that that type of activity wouldn’t have an effect on the members,” said House Intelligence Committee member Tom Rooney (R-Fla.). “There’s a certain level of trust that we have with each other because we do go through a lot together, as far as what we’re trying to accomplish.

“If ever any element of an adversarial relationship [is] thrown in there, that trust can be jeopardized,” he added. “Anybody that says that’s not evident I don’t think is being completely honest.”