midterm redux
Could Mark Udall leak the CIA torture report now?
After losing to Republican challenger Cory Gardner, there may be one silver lining for Colorado Sen. Mark Udall: He can finally tell the public what the CIA has done. Udall is a member of the Senate's intelligence committee, where he is one of a small group to support greater transparency and civil liberties protections in the face of CIA and NSA overreach.
Udall has so far chosen not to reveal the contents of the CIA torture report, which remains classified — presumably because doing so would cost him his position on the intelligence committee. But now, with nothing to lose, "Udall can use congressional immunity provided to him by the Constitution's speech and debate clause to read the Senate's still-classified 6,000-page CIA torture report into the Congressional record — on the floor, on TV, for the world to see," writes The Guardian.
The move wouldn't be without precedent; Sen. Mike Gravel did something similar with the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s.