A CIA interrogation report, detailing the history of techniques used by the spy agency, was deleted by an internal watchdog sometime last summer, reported
The Hill. The CIA claims it was just a big mistake.
The Hill reported that both the electronic copy and the hard disk of the 6,700-page report on the CIA's former methods of interrogation were destroyed last year. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein confirmed the loss of the document in letters to the CIA and Department of Justice last week.
While most of the report was classified, a 500-page executive summary was made public in 2014.
"When it received its disk, the inspector general's office uploaded the contents onto its internal classified computer system and destroyed the disk in what (Christopher R. Sharpley, the CIA's acting inspector general) described as 'the normal course of business,'" sources told
Yahoo News on Monday.
"Meanwhile someone in the IG office interpreted the Justice Department's instructions not to open the file to mean it should be deleted from the server — so that both the original and the copy were gone," said the Yahoo News source.
CIA general counsel Caroline Krass at some point told the inspector general's office that the justice department wanted all copies of the report preserved. The office then discovered it did not have its copy after a search, noted Yahoo News.
"It's breathtaking that this could have happened, especially in the inspector general's office — they're the ones that are supposed to be providing accountability within the agency itself," Douglas Cox, a City University of New York School of Law professor who is an expert in the preservation of federal records, told Yahoo News. "It makes you wonder what was going on over there?"
In Feinstein's letter to CIA director John Brennan and attorney general Loretta Lynch, she asked that the inspector general be given another copy of the report, said
Fox News. The report had been given out to other agencies after it was first released, noted Fox News.
"Your prompt response will allay my concern that this was more than an 'accident,'" Feinstein wrote to Brennan and Lynch.
There is still a question on whether the report is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last week that it was, noted Yahoo News.
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