The White House and the CIA are currently engaged in an unrelenting battle to cover up the George W. Bush administration’s torture program and to maintain a system of impunity for what are obvious war crimes. Disturbingly, they are even willing to break the law — again — to win that battle.

The historic testimony given by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Senate floor on March 11 laid bare the efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency to block the publication of a 6,300-page investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the Bush-era interrogation program. She accused the CIA of violating both statutory laws and the Constitution.

The committee, chaired by Feinstein, began a comprehensive review of the post-9/11 detention and interrogation program in 2009. As part of the investigation, the CIA was compelled to provide the committee and its staff with all relevant documents.

At some point during the investigation, the CIA quietly hacked into the computer network established specifically for the inquiry and removed about 1,000 pages of documents, including an internal CIA review of the torture program that was conducted while Leon Panetta was its director. When questioned, the CIA claimed the White House ordered the files removed, which the White House denied.

This breech of the computer network indicates not only that the CIA violated its agreement with the Senate committee and then lied about it but also that it acted independently of White House orders, all in an attempt to hide information about the torture and interrogation program.

The still classified Senate study reportedly reveals gruesome details of torture and concludes, contrary to CIA claims, that so-called enhanced interrogation methods did not generate valuable intelligence.

The CIA has maintained that the report cannot be declassified because of significant factual errors and misleading judgments; this is a curious contention, as the internal Panetta review largely conforms to the committee’s conclusions.

“Some of these important parts that the CIA now disputes in our committee study are clearly acknowledged in the CIA’s own internal Panetta review,” Feinstein explained. “To say the least, this is puzzling. How can the CIA's official response to our study stand factually in conflict with its own internal review?”

Feinstein also revealed that the CIA’s general counsel — who played an important part in the torture program and who is “mentioned by name more than 1,600 times” in the committee study — told the Department of Justice that Senate staff committed a crime by reading the Panetta review. Feinstein said she believes this was an attempt to “intimidate” the committee and sabotage the investigation.

While it’s unlikely the CIA will face penalties for this intimidation, Feinstein’s testimony may help tip the balance in favor of declassifying the Senate review.

The CIA shares blame for obstructing the Senate investigation with the White House. Despite repeated statements that he supports the release of the committee’s report, President Barack Obama, in the face of CIA objections, has refused to declassify it.