GOP chairman demands White House give back ‘torture report’

The new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee is demanding that the White House return a 6,900-page analysis for the CIA’s former brutal interrogation methods, according to multiple reports.

The move from Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) appears to be designed to ensure that the full report — which remains classified — does not see the light of day.

{mosads}While the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500-page executive summary of the report last year, while it was still controlled by Democrats, the full analysis remains classified.

Burr’s effort to withdraw the report from the White House appears to be an attempt to block it from possible release under the Freedom of Information Act or some other means. Records of Congress are not covered under the transparency law.

The move drew quick rebuke from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the former committee chairwoman and its current top Democrat.

“I strongly disagree that the administration should relinquish copies of the full committee study, which contains far more detailed records than the public executive summary,” she said in a statement late on Tuesday evening. “Doing so would limit the ability to learn lessons from this sad chapter in America’s history and omit from the record two years of work, including changes made to the committee’s 2012 report following extensive discussion with the CIA.”

Feinstein sent a copy of the full report to the White House, CIA and other arms of government in December, when the executive summary was released to the public.

Burr’s request puts the White House in an uncomfortable position.

While President Obama has supported the public release of the study’s conclusions, he has also taken pains to show his support of the CIA and Director John Brennan, a longtime adviser.

The White House declined to comment on Burr’s request or whether it would comply return the copies in its possession. A Burr spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Hill.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report accused the CIA of carrying on a brutal regime of waterboarding, “stress positions” and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques under former President George W. Bush, which it said sometimes amounted to torture. All the while, the report maintained, agency officials misled their overseers at the White House and Congress.   

The analysis has been termed the “torture report.”

The report was spearheaded by Democrats in Congress. Burr has been one of its biggest critics, claiming that the analysis was one-sided and incomplete.