Kit Bond

It may not be the 9/11 Commission, and may not have the force of, say, John Durham’s Justice Department inquiry into prospective CIA illegality in the Bush administration’s so-called ‘enhanced interrogation program.’ But a panel helmed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, has gone through sheafs of documents and [...]

Just announced by committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.):
“I very much regret the fact that the Republican side of the Intelligence Committee has chosen not to continue to participate in the Committee’s study and investigation into the detention and interrogation of high-value detainees. However, that study and investigation is being pursued, additional staff are being hired, [...]

New statement from the Senate GOP leader. As foreshadowed by last week’s letter to Attorney General Eric Holder from nine Republican senators, McConnell argues that the new probe will be a net disaster for national security:
“We must remain mindful that we still are very much a nation at war with terrorists who spend every hour [...]

You know what Monday is, right? That’s the date, ordered by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, for the government to disclose the CIA inspector general’s 2004 report into the agency’s torture apparatus to the American Civil Liberties Union in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. That document, which according to reports is filled with grisly tales of [...]

It read to me yesterday like the torture documents requested in the Senate intelligence committee’s intelligence authorization bill were probably documents from the CIA supporting the dubious proposition that torturing detainees yielded valuable intelligence. But it’s unclear — they’re, of course, still classified — and some progressive senators, like Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Russ Feingold [...]

More on that new provision in the intelligence authorization bill pushing disclosure on the efficacy of torture. The measure was proposed by Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) to counter the Obama administration’s portrayal of torture as ineffective, and particularly in light of the release of the Justice Department’s 2002 and 2005 memoranda justifying its use. In [...]

Following up on Friday’s item about the intelligence funding bill that just cleared the Senate intelligence committee, the unclassified summary of the bill is now up on the committee’s Web page. Check out section 427:
Section 427.  Public availability of unclassified versions of certain intelligence products
Section 427 requires the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to [...]

Because it’s 5 p.m. on a July Friday, the leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.), have announced that the committee’s unanimously agreed on fiscal year 2010’s intelligence-funding authorization bill. (The full bill isn’t public yet.) Among its requirements is this curious provision, according to a bill summary:
Require the [...]

After interviewing Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) a few minutes ago, I think I want to revise and extend my comment this morning that most members of Congress alarmed over the revelation of “significant actions” by the CIA that Director Leon Panetta recently stopped were more concerned with not being briefed than by the actions themselves.
“The [...]

It comes in this Washington Post story about the aforementioned CIA “significant actions“:
“Why would you cancel it?” asked Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee. “If the CIA weren’t trying to do something like this, we’d be asking ‘Why not?’ “
Well, yeah. We don’t yet know what “this” [...]