Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan may have avoided losing his job over charges that the CIA spied on Senate members and staffers for the time being, but there are still troubles brewing over the unauthorized espionage scandal.
The Hill reports that after Brennan kicked off a Senate firestorm by initially denying the illicit snooping into Senate computers, and several senators, including Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called for Brennan's scalp.
Udall hasn't backed off.
"I absolutely stand by my call for CIA Director John Brennan to resign," Udall told The Hill.
"The CIA's spying on its overseers in Congress and Brennan's failure to acknowledge any serious wrongdoing by the agency demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership.
“There are still significant unanswered questions about the search of the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers and Director Brennan and CIA leadership must be accountable to Congress on this matter."
Brennan initially denied the accusations of Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Cal., saying, "As far as the allegations of CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn't do that. I mean, that's—that's just beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we would do," according to the
Council on Foreign Relations.
However, after a CIA inspector general's report found that the spying had, in fact, taken place, Brennan said he had known nothing about it and apologized for it to Feinstein and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who originally had supported demanding Brennan's resignation, but changed his tune after the apology.
"The fact is we now know he did not have all the facts. Once he got all the facts, he came back and he did apologize,"
The Hill reported Chambliss said on CBS’s "Face the Nation."
Brennan became CIA director in 2013, replacing Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned over the scandal of his affair with Paula Broadwell, his married biographer.
The report came just as Congress was beginning its fall recess and, with the midterm November elections looming and the conflict in Syria and Iraq demanding lawmakers' attention, it's possible that Brennan has dodged a bullet, The Hill concludes.
However, a CIA internal accountability board chaired by Sen.Evan Bayh, D-Ind., still is looking into just how much Brennan knew, and whether he told Feinstein and Chambliss the truth, and Chambliss warned, "This is very, very serious. If I thought John Brennan knew about this, then it would be — certainly, we'd be calling for his resignation," he said.
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