Udall Calls out Former CIA Director's 'Baseless Smear' of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Feinstein

Press Release

Mark Udall, who serves on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called out former CIA Director Michael Hayden for resorting to baseless attacks on committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in an effort to undermine the committee's historic and exhaustive study of the agency's detention and interrogation program. Udall, who has led the effort to declassify the landmark study, said this attack only underscores the lengths to which some in the intelligence community will go to try to discredit the Senate Intelligence Committee's work.

"Former CIA Director Hayden's baseless smear of Chairman Feinstein is beyond the pale. I highly doubt he would call a male chairman too 'emotional' and to do so with Chairman Feinstein is unacceptable," Udall said. "The Senate Intelligence Committee's study is based on an exhaustive and years-long review of millions of internal CIA and other records. The fact that former Director Hayden questions the objectivity of the committee's study at the same time that he freely admits that he hasn't read it demonstrates particular gall, in my view. Let's declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee's study, set the record straight once and for all, and have a long overdue public debate about the CIA's torture program and how to ensure that it never happens again."

Udall has been the leading proponent of swiftly declassifying the Senate Intelligence Committee's exhaustive study. Following the Senate Intelligence Committee's vote last week to declassify the study, he called on the White House to ensure the CIA does not oversee the declassification of the study.

Source