Only John Oliver would enlist the elocutionary skills of an Academy Award-winning actor to compel people to read the U.S. Senate’s Report on CIA Torture, but even as it is narrated in Dame Helen Mirren’s soothing voice, the torture carried out by the CIA against its detainees during its cruel interrogation program, is still horrifying. On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver brought to a mainstream audience what professional interrogators, terror experts, rehabilitation experts, and survivors of torture all already know: the tale of torture’s effectiveness is “one of those movie tropes that’s got no basis in real life.”

Last week, under the leadership of Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Intelligence Committee made public the executive summary of its 6,000-plus page report on the CIA’s use of torture post 9/11. CVT has worked for the release of this report for more than four years.Please read CVT’s statement in response to the release of the executive summary.The executive summary describes some things we already knew: that the CIA torture program was more brutal and widespread than had been previously reported, and that the CIA intentionally misled the Congress and the Executive Branch.

Today in Washington, DC, The Constitution Project released the results of a national poll finding 69 percent of Americans believe a declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture should be released to the public.Among respondents, support for releasing the report is bipartisan, with 71 percent of independents, 69 percent of Democrats, and 67 percent of Republicans saying the report should be made public.

In this commentary, Executive Director Curt Goering describes some of the important reasons why CVT supports the public release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,300 page report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s former detention and interrogation program.