Senator Dianne Feinstein, finally angry at the CIA because they’re spying on her
b. traven
Funny how politicians start looking for Jesus when the Devil is attacking them personally. Sen. Feinstein, Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) didn’t need Jesus when she supinely supported the CIA and NSA’s illegal spying on American tax paying citizens, you and me. When John Brennan, already notorious for his role in the Bush torture program was nominated by that great civil libertarian, Barack Obama to head the CIA, Feinstein could hardly wait to rush the SIC endorsement of him for that office. But when recently that same John Brennan as CIA head asked the Justice Dept. to launch a “criminal investigation” of members of her committee, it then became a personal matter for Feinstein’s career and she had suddenly to start looking for Jesus as well as her dusty copy of the US Constitution.
Feinstein was so used to covering for the intelligence services that when the pressure had built to force her committee to investigate the CIA’s torture program she eagerly accepted their demand that her committee review the documents in the CIA’s rooms. She also never raised a peep when evidence began to appear that they were surveilling her staff’s work.
As usual, President Obama is distancing himself from this hunt for Jesus because, as Glenn Greenwald’s First Look explained, he might have some ‘skin in the game’ that he doesn’t want to be exposed.
Or as the Guardian of London put it: “Barack Obama sought to distance the White House from the fierce dispute between top senators and the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday, claiming it would be inappropriate for his administration to become involved the clash over an investigation into the use of torture in post-9/11 interrogations.”
So we have Senator Feinstein desperately trying to do something she has spent five years not doing and the President desperately doing what he has spent five years doing, trying to avoid any fallout from an event he was probably deeply involved in. Brennan believes he is Jesus and has shown that he is ready to defy all worldly restrictions like the US Constitution in his self-anointed role.
Based on past behavior of these players, who do you think will win out? I will only bet on the loser, and that would be the American people and our Constitution. How long are we ready to let this Kabuki Theater continue?
The Contrary Perspective 
The sad fact of the matter is that The Bill of Rights was taken outside and shot, in the sacred name of “National Security,” after the events of 9/11. No legislative body and no court of law will be allowed to put a leash on any spy agency. And I’m sure POTUS himself is leery of “getting on their wrong side.”
“As Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, Senator Gravel immediately convened a hearing, to receive testimony from Congressman John Dow of New York on the war-related lack of funds to meet our nation’s needs for public buildings. As his opening remarks, and during the course of the evening, Senator Gravel read part of the Pentagon Papers into the record. The remaining portions of the Papers were incorporated into the record of the subcommittee and then were released to the press.” — preface to the Gravel edition of The Pentagon Papers
Senator Feinstein — if she actually gives a damn about the principle of constitutional checks and balances, not to mention statutory law — can do what Senator Mike Gravel did: namely, read her committee’s “classified” report into the official Senate record and thus make this information available to the press and people. She doesn’t have to ask permission of the CIA, the FBI, the DOJ, or the President of the United States. “Nor all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men” can do a damn thing about it.
But then, again, one can hardly compare Senator Feinstein to Senator Gravel when it comes to defending the people’s right to know what their corrupt and clueless excuse for a government regularly does to besmirch the name and reputation of the nation.