On the Meet the Press, Ron Wyden takes on Dick Cheney on torture

Kari Chisholm

In the wake of the CIA torture report, Senator Ron Wyden is calling for a new federal law that would permanently ban all agencies of the federal government -- particularly, the CIA -- from engaging in torture.

On Meet the Press yesterday, Wyden made it clear -- this isn't a partisan issue, and it's not a matter of opinion:

Facts aren't partisan, Chuck. We reviewed six million pages of documents, the full report has 38,000 footnotes. And what we've thought to do was very careful. And that is to take the statements the C.I.A. made to the American people, made to the Congress, made to the Justice Department, made to the president, and we compared it to their own internal communications in real time. There are a mountain of contradictions.

Right now, the Army Field Manual bans torture, but it only applies to the military. President Obama issued an executive order barring the intelligence agencies from using torture, but another president could reverse it easily.

The former vice president, Dick Cheney, also appeared on Meet the Press saying that he'd use torture again "in a minute". And it's not just former Bush administration officials. Just last week, the current CIA director, John Brennan, made it clear that they still consider torture a possible tactic for future use. Senator Wyden:

But what I'm especially troubled by is John Brennan on Thursday really opened the door to the possibility of torture being used again. And that's why it's so important that our report come out.

Discuss.

By Kari Chisholm Dec. 15, 2014 Posted in Video.