The HPSCI Russia Report, Reconsidered

What seems eons ago, but was only last spring, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) issued its report on “Russian Active Measures” in connection with the 2016 presidential election. The report was largely dismissed as a partisan effort by Chairman Devin Nunes, “one of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress and a former adviser to his transition team,” to protect the president. The HPSCI minority issued separate views that claimed the majority’s findings were “crafted to advance a political narrative that exonerates the President, downplays Russia’s preference and support for then-candidate Trump, explains away repeated contacts by Trump associates with Russia-aligned actors, and seeks to shift suspicion towards President Trump’s political opponents and the prior administration.” Both the majority report and the minority response were then quickly forgotten.

With the Democrats assuming control of the committee in the 116thCongress, however, the HPSCI report may assume new significance. For one thing, the incoming majority will reopen the investigation in order to answer questions it claims the Republicans failed to adequately pursue. For another, there will be questions about the veracity of witnesses who testified before HPSCI in the 115thCongress. Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, has already plead guilty to making false statements to both HPSCI and the Senate intelligence committee regarding his efforts to pursue a Trump Tower Moscow deal during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It is important to distinguish between the facts reported by HPSCI and the characterization of those facts by the committee majority. It is fair to say that the HPSCI report gave President Trump the benefit of every reasonable doubt (and perhaps some unreasonable ones), but the facts it reported are nonetheless damning enough. Moreover, although the committee may have sought to exonerate the president in some respects, it also had some very pointed criticisms of the judgment and ethics of his campaign. It is therefore worth reviewing what HPSCI reported in the spring of 2018.

Russia’s Active Measures

The committee found that Russia employed an “active measures campaign” in connection with the 2016 election, a campaign which “achieved its primary goal of inciting division and discord among Americans.” It was “multifaceted,” “leverage[ing] cyberattacks, covert platforms, social media, third-party intermediaries, and state-run media.” Furthermore, “[h]acked material was disseminated through this myriad network . . . in conjunction with derisive messages posted on social media” in order to “undermine confidence in the election,” “sow fear and division in American society,” and ultimately to sabotage “the effectiveness of the future administration.”

The HPSCI report notes that Russia’s campaign was consistent with its efforts in other countries: “Russia supports fringe political parties and non-governmental organizations in Europe to further the Kremlin’s agenda while also disparaging or discrediting politicians and groups seen as hostile to Moscow.” For example, “during the recent French Presidential elections, Russian-controlled media highlighted defamatory stories about the private life and campaign funding of the more Russia-skeptic Emmanuel Macron.”

While the report avoids labeling Donald Trump (or for that matter Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein) as a “fringe” candidate supported by Russia, one can read between the lines. In any event, the report leaves no doubt who played the role of Macron in the U.S. election of 2016. Russian media “was critical of presidential candidates from both major parties but was consistently critical of candidate Clinton through the election.”

Clinton and her campaign were also the focus of Russia’s cyberattacks and its use of Wikileaks to disseminate politically damaging information obtained in those attacks. Thus, the report confirms key intelligence community findings, including that “Russian intelligence services, acting on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, launched cyber and conventional influence operations—notably by leaking politically sensitive emails obtained from computer intrusions—during the 2016 election.”

Why was Clinton targeted as the more “Russia-skeptic” candidate? The report does not directly answer that question, but it provides some clues. It points out that “candidate Trump and several of his campaign advisers expressed policy views toward Russia quite different than those espoused by much of the Republican foreign policy establishment . . . .”

Trump also had an unusual number of campaign aides with pro-Russian views or close ties to Russia. These included his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who at the time of the report had been indicted for financial crimes related to his pre-campaign Russian activities. As the report notes, “[i]f the accusations against Manafort are true, he should have never served as a senior official with a campaign for the U.S. presidency, much less campaign chairman or manager.” (A jury found in August that many of the accusations were true.). Continue reading “The HPSCI Russia Report, Reconsidered”

HPSCI Doesn’t Need Don McGahn’s Permission to Release Schiff Memo

We discussed a couple weeks ago the process by which the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) may publicly release classified information. Pursuant to House Rule X(11)(g)(2)(A), HPSCI had voted on January 29 to release the so-called “Nunes Memo.” This vote authorized the committee to release the memo

after the expiration of a five-day period following the day on which notice of the vote to disclose is transmitted to the President unless, before the expiration of the five-day period, the President, personally in writing, notifies the select committee that he objects to the disclosure of such information, provides his reasons therefor, and certifies that the threat to the national interest of the United States posed by the disclosure is of such gravity that it outweighs any public interest in the disclosure.

House Rule X(11)(g)(2)(B).

On February 2, President Trump declassified the Nunes Memo in response to HPSCI’s action. Although HPSCI’s January 29 vote was not a request to declassify the memo, there is nothing inherently wrong with declassifying the memo prior to the expiration of the five-day period, thereby allowing the committee to release the document earlier. However, there was no requirement that the president declassify the document. Once the five days expired without an objection satisfying the requirements of the rule, the committee was free to release the memo regardless of whether it had been declassified.

It appears, however, that the declassification of the Nunes Memo was something other than the executive branch’s attempt to be helpful. On February 5, HPSCI again voted to invoke the disclosure rule, this time with regard to the rebuttal memorandum prepared by the Democratic minority (the “Schiff Memo”). In response the president has neither declassified the memo nor objected in accordance with the rule.

Instead, by letter to HPSCI dated February 9, White House counsel Don McGahn explained that because “the public release of classified information by unilateral action of the Legislative Branch is extremely rare and raises serious separation of powers concerns, as the Constitution vests the President with the authority to control access to sensitive national security information . . . we are once again treating the Committee’s action as a request for declassification pursuant to the President’s constitutional authority.”  Moreover, although the president “is inclined” to declassify the Schiff Memo, he is “unable to do so at this time” because the memo “contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.” According to McGahn, President Trump “encourages” HPSCI to work with the Department of Justice to revise the Schiff Memo “to mitigate the risks identified by the Department,” and the “Executive Branch stands ready to review any subsequent draft” of the memo “for declassification at the earliest time.”

There is only one problem with this cooperative sounding letter. The House rule does not require any declassification decisions by the president or anyone else.  What it does require is an objection and specific certification by the president “personally and in writing.” These requirements are not satisfied by McGahn’s letter because McGahn is not the president and his letter does not contain the required certification.

McGahn’s position is that the executive branch will treat the HPSCI vote as if it were a request for declassification because otherwise HPSCI’s action would raise “serious separation of powers concerns.” This is a hitherto unknown means of constitutional avoidance. There was no ambiguity in HPSCI’s action and McGahn cannot pretend it did not happen because he thinks it might raise constitutional issues. It should be noted, moreover, that the executive branch has never before questioned the constitutionality of the House and Senate disclosure rules. McGahn’s only basis for doing so now is a single jump cite to Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988), a case which involved the executive branch’s authority to deny security clearance to its own employees.

HPSCI apparently wishes to work with the Department of Justice to ensure that nothing in the Schiff Memo jeopardizes national security. This is appropriate and reasonable. However, it is essential to protect its constitutional prerogatives that HPSCI make it clear it in no way accepts McGahn’s position with regard to the House rule. Once the five-day period expires, the executive branch has no standing to raise objections and HPSCI has no legal obligation to get permission from McGahn or anyone else before releasing the memo. Any redactions or other modifications that the committee wishes to make for national security reasons are entirely within its own discretion.

Marking Time on the Nunes Memo (with update)

In the past few days a lot of people (relatively speaking) have been reading this post (“Congressional Release of Classified Information and the Speech or Debate Clause”), which discusses the process by which the House and Senate intelligence committees may release classified information to the public. This spike in interest, I presume, relates to the vote yesterday of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) to release the “Nunes memo,” which details alleged abuses of the FISA process during the investigation of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 elections.

My prior posts on this subject have focused on the Senate (mostly in connection with the release of the “torture memo”, see here, here, here and here), but the House procedure is basically the same as that of the Senate, except that there is no requirement that HPSCI consult with or notify the chamber’s leadership. Thus, as provided by House Rule X(11)(g)(2)(B), HPSCI “may disclose publicly” the Nunes memo “after the expiration of a five-day period following the day on which notice of the vote to disclose is transmitted to the President,” unless in the interim the president objects in the manner specified by the rule.

As far as I can tell, the memo was not transmitted to the White House yesterday, so lets assume it will be transmitted today (note there is no requirement that HPSCI transmit the memo within a specified period of time). When will the five day period expire? If one counted every calendar day, it would expire at midnight on Sunday, February 4, and the memo could be released as early as Monday, February 5. Traditionally, however, the House considers Sunday to be a “dies non” so it will almost certainly not count for the computation. I am less clear on whether Saturday would be counted. Often House rules provide that Saturdays and legal holidays (as well as Sundays) are not counted for purposes of computing days, but there is no such express provision in the rule governing HPSCI’s release of information. So I am not sure whether the Parliamentarians will count Saturday or not. Depending on the answer, the memo would be releasable on Tuesday or Wednesday, unless an objection is received from the president.

What happens if the five days expire with no objection? The rule says that HPSCI “may” disclose the information at that point. It does not say that it must do so. But who decides whether the memo will actually be released? The rule says the information may be released by the “select committee.” It could therefore be argued that an individual member still cannot release the memo until HPSCI itself takes some further action. This might be interpreted to require that the committee take another vote, but since the rule elsewhere specifies other votes the committee must take, it seems likely that no formal vote is required. The Parliamentarians may rule that the chair can release the memo on behalf of the committee, but no one else may do so without the permission of the chair or another vote of the committee.

What if the White House asks for more time to evaluate the memo? Nothing in the rule expressly allows for the five day period to be extended. If the chair controls the release, he can agree to delay until the White House has an opportunity to respond. But once the five days expire, it would appear that the memo is releasable, even if it is not actually released. Any objection received after the expiration of the five days is (at least arguably) ineffective. Thus, if any faction of HPSCI (or the House) wanted the memo released, they could argue that the president’s objections were invalid under the rule.

[update: the above assumes that the transmission of the memo and “notice of the vote to disclose” occur simultaneously. This makes a certain amount of sense since it would be pointless to transmit the notice of the vote without informing the president of what is to be disclosed, given that the purpose of the five day period is for the president to decide whether to object to disclosure. But it is possible that HPSCI could transmit the memo to the president without a formal notice of the vote to disclose, thereby delaying the commencement of the five day period. So this represents another uncertainty as to when exactly the memo can/will be released publicly.]

SSCI’s Approach to Releasing its Classified Report Weakens the Senate’s Prerogatives

Section 8(a) of S. Res. 400 provides that SSCI “may, subject to the provisions of this section, disclose publicly any information in the possession of such committee after a determination by such committee that the public interest would be served by such disclosure.” Chairman Feinstein clearly wants to publicly release SSCI’s report on the CIA detention and interrogation program and she believes that disclosure would be in the public interest. Yet she has not asked SSCI to take a vote under Section 8(a). She has not acknowledged any obligation on SSCI’s part to make a determination under Section 8(a) and she has not explained SSCI’s failure to use its authority under Section 8(b) to release classified information. Indeed, she has acted as if Section 8 does not exist, and no one in the media has bothered to ask her why.

The effect of this approach is to make public release of the SSCI report turn entirely on whether the report is declassified, and therefore cedes decision-making power to the President and the executive branch. Thus, when Feinstein announced in April that SSCI had voted to “declassify” its report on the CIA detention and interrogation program, I pointed out that the committee doesn’t have the authority to “declassify” anything. In reality, all the committee could do was ask the executive branch to conduct a declassification review and hope for favorable results.

Shortly after my post, Professor Lederman was able to get this helpful clarification from SSCI staff: Continue reading “SSCI’s Approach to Releasing its Classified Report Weakens the Senate’s Prerogatives”

A Closer Look at the Senate’s Procedures for Releasing Classified Information under S. Res. 400

As discussed in my last post, there is (or should be) no serious controversy regarding the Senate’s authority to release classified information unilaterally pursuant to Section 8 of S. Res. 400. Yet the full Senate has apparently never taken a vote to release information under Section 8, perhaps in part because of that section’s elaborate procedural requirements.

At the outset, SSCI must make a determination, by a formal vote, “that the public interest would be served by such disclosure.” Senator Ribbicoff observed that this provision, embodied in Section 8(a), “establishes the basic rule that the committee may disclose information where disclosure is in the public interest.” CRS Legislative History of S. Res. 400 at 88.

Under Section 8(b), however, SSCI must take additional steps where the disclosure involves “any information which has been classified under established security procedures, which has been submitted to it by the Executive branch, and which the Executive branch requests be kept secret.” Such information may only be released pursuant to the process further described in Section 8(b).

The first step in this process is for SSCI to notify and consult with the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders regarding the vote to disclose classified information. The rule specifies that this consultation must take place prior to providing formal notice to the President. The purpose of this step, which was not added to Section 8 until 2004 (by S. Res. 445), is presumably to afford the Senate leadership with an opportunity to resolve the situation before formal notice to the President is given.

Once the President is notified, a five-day clock starts ticking. After five days have expired, SSCI may publicly disclose the information that was the subject of the vote, unless the President properly objects within this period. To do so, he must, “personally” and “in writing,” notify SSCI of his objection to disclosure, provide his reasons therefor, and certify “that the threat to the national interest of the United States posed by such disclosure is of such gravity that it outweighs any public interest in the disclosure.”

Continue reading “A Closer Look at the Senate’s Procedures for Releasing Classified Information under S. Res. 400”

Does the Obama Administration Challenge the Senate’s Authority to Release Classified Information under S. Res. 400?

On Friday, August 1, the executive branch returned to SSCI the redacted executive summary of the committee’s study on the CIA detention and interrogation program. Chairman Feinstein announced that there had been “significant redactions” made and that the public release of the report would be held until the committee had time to “understand the basis for these redactions and determine their justification.” Thus, she has chosen not to release the redacted version of the report although SSCI is now legally free to do so (without prejudice to its right to seek release of an unredacted or less redacted version at a later time).

Assuming that Feinstein and her colleagues decide to challenge some or all of the redactions, they have a clear mechanism for doing so in Section 8 of S. Res. 400. As we have discussed before, this provision allows SSCI to vote for public disclosure of classified material the executive branch wishes be kept secret. Unless the President objects within five days, the committee may release the information. If the President does object, the matter may be elevated to the Senate for final decision.

A blog post by Professor Marty Lederman, however, raises the surprising possibility that the Obama administration may not recognize or accept the legitimacy of this mechanism. Lederman cites two FOIA filings by the Obama Justice Department that say SSCI can only publicly release material after declassification review by the executive branch. If these statements were taken literally, they conflict (or arguably conflict) with the Senate’s authority under Section 8.

I think it unlikely, however, that these statements portend any administration challenge to the Senate’s Section 8 authority. First, as far as I know, no prior administration has questioned the Senate’s authority to release classified information under Section 8 (nor the House’s similar authority under Rule X(11)(g)). The provision in question was the subject of some controversy when S. Res. 400 was proposed and adopted in 1976, but it does not appear that the executive branch seriously questioned its constitutionality or legitimacy. This CRS legislative history of S. Res. 400, for example, reflects only that then-DCI George H.W. Bush expressed some reservations about the disclosure provision, feeling that it “might conflict with the statute requiring the DCI to ‘protect intelligence sources and methods.’” (p. 18).

During the floor debate over S. Res. 400, the only constitutional objection to Section 8 was raised by Senator Abourezk, who felt it was too deferential to the executive branch classification system. He argued that the new intelligence oversight committee “will be saddled with formal procedures for declassifying information buttressed by sanctions in contrast to the President who is free to declassify in an ad hoc manner as it suits his political needs.” (CRS-96). No senator, in contrast, questioned the Senate’s constitutional authority to release classified information without executive branch permission.

If the executive branch objected to Section 8, it could have insisted on modification or repeal of this provision (and the analogous House rule, which was adopted in 1977) as a condition of providing SSCI and HPSCI with sensitive intelligence information. Instead, in 1978 President Carter issued Executive Order 12036, which “officially recognized the existence of the two oversight committees and directed that they be kept ‘fully and currently informed’ by the departments and agencies that made up the Intelligence Community.” Britt Snyder, The Agency and the Hill 59. This principle was later enacted into law by the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980. The executive branch evidently considered the procedures established under Section 8 as an adequate protection for classified information shared with the intelligence committees and undoubtedly preferred them to prior practice in which individual committees could decide to release classified information unilaterally. See id. 200-01 (describing how the Pike Committee in the House unilaterally released classified information that the Ford Administration believed seriously compromised US SIGINT capabilities). Subsequent administrations have continued or strengthened information-sharing practices and laws without challenging (as far as I know) the right of the intelligence committees to use Section 8 or its House counterpart to release classified information.

Furthermore, the two FOIA filings Lederman cites strike me as unlikely vehicles for an Obama administration challenge to Section 8. Both appear in a FOIA case against the CIA in which the ACLU seeks access to the Senate report. The first filing is an affidavit from the director of CIA congressional affairs, who states that “SSCI would be required to submit its Report for a declassification review before it could public release the Report.” The second is a reply brief in which the Justice Department refers to a declassification review of the report as “a necessary precursor to public release.”

Neither of these filings mentions Section 8 of S. Res. 400 or alludes to the possibility of the Senate, as opposed to SSCI, releasing the report. It therefore would seem quite a stretch to suggest that these documents implicitly announce the administration’s rejection of Section 8 as a legitimate mechanism for public disclosure. For all we know, the authors of these documents were not even aware of Section 8. Or perhaps they thought SSCI had committed, formally or informally, to submitting its report for declassification review. Or perhaps they just decided to ignore Section 8 for some other reason.

If the administration really wanted to question the constitutionality of Section 8, one would expect a pronouncement on the issue from the Office of Legal Counsel (not known for being shy about asserting executive prerogatives). I am not aware of any such pronouncement, and Lederman (who served in the OLC as a political appointee in the Obama administration and as an attorney advisor in prior administrations) cites none.

So, in short, I seriously doubt that the administration would challenge the right of SSCI and the Senate to use Section 8. Lederman, with whom I consulted before posting this, assures me that he isn’t predicting this either. Moreover, as indicated in his original post, Lederman doesn’t think there would be much to such a challenge if it were made. Neither do I.

Which begs the question of why SSCI is so skittish about invoking Section 8. A subject I will turn to in a future post.

Is SSCI Following the Senate Rules?

According to a press release from Chairman Feinstein yesterday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has “voted to declassify the 480-page executive summary as well as 20 findings and conclusions of the majority’s five-year study of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program, which involved more than 100 detainees.”

But, wait, SSCI can’t “declassify” anything. Classification and declassification are internal executive branch procedures. Indeed, the press release goes on to say:

The executive summary, findings, and conclusions—which total more than 500 pages—will be sent to the president for declassification review and subsequent public release. President Obama has indicated his support of declassification of these parts of the report and CIA Director Brennan has said this will happen expeditiously. Until the declassification process is complete and that portion of the report is released, it will remain classified.

That makes it sound as if SSCI has merely asked the executive branch to declassify the materials, which is quite different from actually declassifying them.

So what is actually going on here? Continue reading “Is SSCI Following the Senate Rules?”

Chris Donesa on the SSCI/CIA Dispute

Chris Donesa, former chief counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, provides this thoughtful and balanced analysis at Lawfare of Senator Feinstein’s charges against the CIA, raising three questions about the dispute.

Of particular interest is Donesa’s third question, which relates to why SSCI itself apparently violated its agreement with the CIA by removing certain documents, including drafts of the “Internal Panetta Review,” from the CIA facility without getting pre-clearance to do so. I agree with Donesa that Feinstein clearly, though implicitly, acknowledged such a violation. She claimed in her statement that the removal of the documents was lawful and in keeping with the “spirit” of the agreement (because the committee redacted the information that it believed the CIA would legitimately be able to protect). The corollary is that SSCI violated the letter of the agreement, and I doubt that the CIA would agree that SSCI complied with the agreement’s spirit either.

I would note here that Feinstein doesn’t say whether she authorized the committee staff to remove the documents. But she is clearly saying that the staff acted properly because “there was a need to preserve and protect the Internal Panetta Review in the committee’s own space.” If they had not done so, she suggests, the CIA might have removed the committee’s ability to access the documents at the CIA facility. Moreover, the CIA might have destroyed the documents altogether.

Donesa finds the last suggestion, in particular, rather implausible under the circumstances, and this would be my first reaction as well. But the most important point is that Senator Feinstein is accusing the CIA of being such a rogue agency that it cannot be trusted to avoid even the reckless and unlawful step of destroying evidence specifically known to and demanded by its oversight committee.

So the question I would raise is whether Feinstein’s charge should be viewed as merely the sort of hyperbole we have come to expect in the back and forth of Washington bickering, or whether it should be taken seriously. And if the latter, what is the proper mechanism for adjudicating such an extraordinary charge?

But Other Than That, the CIA Has Been Very Cooperative With SSCI’s Investigation

Senator Feinstein’s bill of particulars against the CIA, set forth in her speech this morning:

Between 2002 and 2006, the CIA failed to brief the Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, other than the Chairman and Vice Chairman, regarding its detention and interrogation program.

In 2007 the CIA destroyed videotapes, over the objections of White House Counsel and the DNI, of certain enhanced interrogations.

In early 2009, SSCI staffers provided an initial report indicating that “[t]he interrogations and conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us.”

After SSCI initiated a full investigation, SSCI agreed, at the request of then- CIA Director Panetta, that it would review CIA documents relevant to its investigation at a secure CIA facility in Northern Virginia. A process was agreed to under which SSCI would be provided with a “stand-alone computer system” that would not be accessed by CIA personnel, other than IT, without SSCI’s permission.

The CIA sent up a laborious and expensive document review process under which every responsive document was reviewed by outside contractors to make sure that SSCI did not receive documents that were either beyond the scope of its requests or potentially subject to a claim of executive privilege.

Beginning in mid-2009, the CIA began producing documents, eventually running into millions of pages, without index or organizational structure, a “document dump.”

SSCI asked the CIA to provide an electronic search tool so it could sort through these documents.  The CIA provided this tool, and SSCI staff used it to identify important documents, which they would then print out or copy to a separate folder on the computer. Eventually the staff identified thousands of such documents in the committee’s secure space at the CIA facility.

In May 2010, SSCI staff noticed that certain documents that had previously been made available for their review were no longer accessible on the SSCI computer at the CIA facility. It later turned out that CIA personnel, without the knowledge or approval of SSCI, had removed 870 documents or pages of documents in February 2010 and another 50 in May 2010. These actions violated the written agreements between SSCI and the CIA and represented the exact sort of CIA interference in the investigation that SSCI had sought to avoid at the outset.

When confronted by SSCI staff, CIA personnel first blamed IT contractors. Then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. This claim was denied by the White House.

The White House Counsel and the CIA gave Senator Feinstein a renewed commitment that there would no further unauthorized access to the committee’s network or removal of CIA documents already provided to the committee. On May 17, 2010, the CIA director of congressional affairs apologized on behalf of the CIA for the removal of the documents.

Sometime during 2010, SSCI staff located draft versions of the “Internal Panetta Review” among the documents made available to the committee at the CIA facility. These documents reached the same conclusions as the committee did with regard to certain “troubling matters” uncovered in its investigation. These documents were identified by SSCI staff as important and were printed out and electronically copied in accordance with their normal practice.

Some, though not all, of the IPR documents were marked as “deliberative” or “privileged.” This was not considered noteworthy because many documents provided to SSCI by the CIA have such markings. Senate Legal Counsel has also advised that these claims of privilege are not recognized by Congress.

Sometime after SSCI staff identified and reviewed the IPR documents, most likely in 2010, the CIA removed access to the vast majority of them. This violated both the CIA’s initial agreements and later assurances by the White House and the CIA that there would be no further removal of documents.

In December 2012, SSCI produced a 6,300 page study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program and sent it to the CIA for comment.

On July 27, 2013, the CIA provided SSCI with its response. Although the CIA agreed with some parts of the SSCI study, it disagrees with and disputes important parts of it. Importantly, “[s]ome of these important parts that the CIA now disputes in our committee study are clearly acknowledged in the CIA’s own Internal Panetta Review.”

After noting the disparity between the official CIA response and the draft IPR, SSCI staff “securely transported a printed portion of the draft Internal Panetta Review from the committee’s secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate Office Building.” This complied with the spirit (if not the letter) of SSCI’s agreements with the CIA because SSCI redacted from these documents the kind of information (names of CIA non-supervisory personnel and names of specific countries in which CIA detention sites were operated) that the CIA was trying to protect. There is no legal prohibition against what SSCI staff did.

Given the CIA’s past practice of removing or destroying information related to the detention and interrogation program, “there was a need to preserve and protect the Internal Panetta Review in the committee’s own secure spaces.”

In late 2013, Senator Feinstein requested a final and complete version of the IPR be provided to the committee. In early 2014, the CIA refused this request, citing the deliberative nature of the document.

On January 15, 2014, CIA Director Brennan informed Chairman Feinstein and Vice Chairman Chambliss that, without prior notification or approval, the CIA had conducted a search of the SSCI computers at the CIA facility. This search was conducted in response to indications that SSCI staff had already obtained access to the IPR. The CIA did not, either prior to the search or thereafter, ask SSCI how it acquired information regarding the IPR. Despite this, someone has made anonymous allegations in the press “that the committee staff had somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means, perhaps to include hacking into the CIA’s computer network.”

On January 17, 2014, Senator Feinstein wrote to Director Brennan objecting to any further CIA investigation regarding the activities of SSCI staff due to separation of powers concerns about the search and any further investigation. She followed up with a letter on January 23 asking 12 specific questions about the CIA’s actions. The CIA has refused to answer these questions.

Senator Feinstein believes that the CIA’s search may well have violated basic separation of powers principles, the Speech or Debate Clause and the Fourth Amendment, as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance. Senator Feinstein has demanded an apology from the CIA and a recognition that the search was inappropriate. She has received neither.

The CIA Inspector General has initiated an investigation of the CIA search and has referred the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal investigation.

Senator Feinstein has also learned that the CIA’s acting General Counsel has “filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice concerning the committee’s staff actions.” This apparently took place after the IG made his referral to the Justice Department. Senator Feinstein believes that there is no legitimate reason for the acting General Counsel (who she notes was heavily involved in the activities covered by the committee’s study of the detention and interrogation program) to have taken this action. She “view[s] the acting general counsel’s referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff.”

She says “this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff—the same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers—including the acting general counsel himself—provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.”

Congressional Release of Classified Information and the Disciplinary Power

In reference to my last post, it has been suggested by one of the more faithful commenters at Balkinization, Shag from Brookline, that the Speech or Debate Clause might bar a house of Congress from taking disciplinary action against a member who unilaterally releases classified information without authorization. Shag asks: “Can action by Congress trump the specific Speech and Debate [sic] clause? Is such Speech and Debate permitted to be questioned in a house of Congress with such action but not in any other Place? Does the First Amendment speech clause enhance or detract from the right (privilege) of a member of Congress under the Speech and Debate [sic] clause?” Shag goes on to ask how the original understanding of and historical practice under the Speech or Debate Clause might be applied in the context of “the fairly recently evolved national security state.”

As legal questions go, the ones Shag asks with regard to the Speech or Debate Clause have very straightforward answers. The text of the Clause is clear that it applies only in “any other Place,” i.e., outside the legislative branch. See, e.g., Howard v. Office of the Chief of Administrative Officer, No. 12-5119 (D.C. Cir. June 28, 2013) (“because the Office of Compliance process occurs within the Legislative Branch, not in a ‘other Place,’ the Speech or Debate Clause does not pose an issue in those cases”) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting); see also United States v. Brewster, 408 U.S. 501, 517-21 (1972) (discussing the fact that misconduct protected by the Speech or Debate Clause may nonetheless be punished by either house under its disciplinary power). As far as I know, no member has ever asserted the Speech or Debate Clause, either as a defense or as a protection against inquiry, in the course of a congressional disciplinary proceeding. Nor has any scholar, court or anyone else with expertise on the Clause suggested that it could apply in a congressional proceeding. Put simply, a member who faces disciplinary action as the result of disclosing classified information can take no solace in the Speech or Debate Clause.

The question with regard to the First Amendment is slightly more complicated. We recently discussed, in the context of the Rangel case, the question of whether and to what extent constitutional protections apply in congressional disciplinary proceedings. As Outside Counsel’s report indicates, even if such protections apply, they cannot be applied in a rigid manner that ignores the unique nature, purpose and history of congressional disciplinary proceedings. Thus, while one can imagine a plausible First Amendment defense in a congressional disciplinary proceeding (say, for example, if the House or Senate sought to punish members who give interviews to a disfavored press outlet), it is unthinkable that the First Amendment would prevent the House and Senate from enforcing rules that are broadly consistent with traditional limitations on member speech. For example, members cannot claim a First Amendment right to violate rules of decorum and debate, by say interrupting another member who has the floor, using foul language in congressional proceedings, or insulting the President.

Is there a colorable argument that disclosure of classified information by a member deserves First Amendment protection from congressional discipline, perhaps because of the importance of such disclosure in checking “the fairly recently evolved national security state”? Put me in the deeply skeptical camp on that one. Both the House and Senate have had specific prohibitions against unauthorized disclosure of classified information for decades. Punishing members for unauthorized disclosure of secret information goes back even further. On December 31, 1810, it is reported: “The Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Pickering) was censured for reading from confidential documents in the Senate in open session before the injunction of secrecy had been removed.” Riddick’s Senate Procedure 270 n.1. It is hard to imagine the House and Senate intelligence and ethics committees agreeing that individual members have a constitutional right to violate congressional secrecy rules just because they believe the public interest requires it.

Whatever the merits of such a constitutional argument, however, it will be weaker if a member makes it without first attempting to use the established congressional procedures for releasing classified information. This was my original point, and if Professor Ackerman or anyone else disagrees, they should explain why.