CIA Torture Fact 9

Fact 9. The CIA torture program was wasteful. 

The CIA paid contract psychologists and torture program architects James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen over $80 million. Torture program non-personnel costs exceeded $300 million. The CIA then spent nearly $40 million in an unprecedented effort to keep documents away from the Senate intelligence committee during its oversight investigation:

Rather than provide documents for the committee to review in its own secure Senate office—as is standard practice—the CIA insisted on establishing a separate leased facility and a “stand-alone” computer network for committee use.

The CIA hired teams of contractors to review every document, multiple times, to ensure they were relevant and not potentially subject to a claim of executive privilege. Only after those costly reviews were the documents then provided to committee staff.

Chairman Feinstein wrote several letters objecting to this unprecedented action, pointing out the wasted expense and unnecessary delays. Later, this arrangement at the off-site CIA facility allowed CIA personnel to remove documents it had provided for the committee’s use and to inappropriately gain access to the committee staff’s computer network.

Click here for the list of 15 Facts about the CIA Torture Program