Feinstein Accuses CIA Lawyer of Intimidating Senate Investigation Panel

On Tuesday, Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused Robert Eatinger, the CIA's senior deputy general counsel, of trying to intimidate the panel over investigations into secret prisons and brutal interrogation of terror suspects. Though Feinstein did not address Eatinger, by name, she said, the person trying to thwart the Senate investigation "is mentioned by name more than 1, 600 times in our study." Washington Post reported its sources claiming the lawyer was Eatinger.

Feinstein accused the CIA lawyer of engaging in "a potential effort to intimidate" committee aides and staff and of providing "inaccurate information" to the Justice Department. Eatinger had filed a criminal complaint earlier this year asking the Justice Department to ascertain whether the Senate Intelligence Committee had improperly obtained classified CIA documents related to the CIA's use of waterboarding and other abusive tactics against terror suspects.


It has also been alleged in the media and in several books that Eatinger was the person, one of two CIA lawyers, involved in the destruction of videotapes that showed torture and use of abusive tactics by CIA operatives against suspects. Despite objections by the Bush administration's White House counsel and the director of the national intelligence, the CIA destroyed the videotapes, being assured by Eatinger that there were no legal requirements for the CIA to preserve the videotapes.

Eatinger was a chief lawyer for the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Unit from mid-2004 until January 2009, when the Obama administration closed down the black sites of CIA and eliminated the interrogation program.

Earlier in 2007, Eatinger was a target of the House Intelligence Committee's probe of the destroyed videotapes, but he was later let off the hook by an independent prosecutor appointed by Eric Holder, who decided not to file charges.

Later, in 2009, Eatinger was among several CIA lawyers chastised by a senior federal judge for withholding critical information in court proceedings.

This time, it seems according to Feinstein, Eatinger is doing his best to put up barriers to the Senate investigation and CIA staff made an unauthorized search of the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers to search for documents related to the inquiry.

Feinstein declared clearly, "I view the acting counsel general's referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff, and I am not taking it lightly."

Eatinger has been a lawyer with the CIA since 1994 and played an indirect role in the political scandal involving the Reagan administration's secret sale of arms to Iran for funding rebels in Nicaragua. Eatinger is a law graduate of the University of San Diego, and has a past career of serving as a military lawyer in the Navy Judge Advocate Gneral's Corps.