gruber did not answer that question -- martha: he said earlier in his testimony that it had been far overestimated in the reports, so we'll see where this goes. he's definitely on the hot seat at the moment. more of that coming up. bill: on "happening now." we'll see you again tomorrow. martha: bye with, everybody. jon: a very controversial report on cia interrogations about to be released. there are fears it could put american lives in danger. good morning to you, i'm jon scott. shannon: and i'm shannon bream in today for jenna lee. we are live on the senate floor as we await senator dianne feinstein who chairs the intelligence committee. she's getting ready to release the summer of a report on enhanced interrogation techniques used in the post-9/11 era. it is expected to criticize and graphically detail those techniques, conclude they were torture and then question the value of the information they produced. the white house is bracing for remore cushions with u.s. embassies -- repercussions with

u.s. embassies preparing for increased security threats. ed henry is live with the story. >> reporter: it's interesting, because it is the white house playing both sides of this. on the one hand, josh earnest saying yesterday again and again that in the interests of transparency, the president and his top aides want to see this report out there, want it to see the light of day so the country knows what happened and that the country sees what the president believes was torture even though republicans insist that's not actually what happened. on the other hand, the white house secretary of state john kerry has also been expressing some of the concerns that republicans have had. secretary kerry on friday calling democratic senator dianne feinstein, the chair of the senate intel committee, raising questions about the timing of this release because of the threat from isis, other terrorists around the world and how this may stir up more trouble. it's interesting, because you also have to remember that this is just the democratic view of the senate intelligence

committee. the republicans on that panel do not agree with this, and former vice president dick cheney has already spoke b out -- spoken out saying in part, quote: when we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from any more mass casualty attacks. the program, he added was the, quote, right thing to do, and if i had to do it over again, i would do it. george bush said anymore over the weekend saying he believes this report sort of goes after intelligence officials who were trying to do their jobs and keep the country safe. it would do the country a disservice, according to former president bush, something i pressed josh earnest about yesterday. listen. does the president, current president share the former president's concerns at all, that some intelligence officials might, there might be an impression they're being thrown under the bus here? >> the president does believe, like president bush expressed, i believe, that the vast majority of the men and women in our intelligence community are true patriots. >> reporter: but josh earnest

went on to say the president, however, does not believe that these techniques made the country safer. a big dispute between the president and his party, republicans on capitol hill, shannon. shannon: yeah. a lot of folks involved trying to keep it from coming out, from pushing it out, and we'll watch as that is happening this hour. ed henry, thank you. jon: that question about whether the country is safer because of those techniques, we'll have a comment on that in just a moment from former vice president dick cheney. for more on the report on the cia's post-9/11 interrogation techniques, let's bring in a former cia officer, former head of the cia's wmd terrorism unit and author of "beyond repair." so because you were in the field with the cia, a lot of people assume naturally that you're going to support these so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. do you? >> i don't support the techniques. i never did support the

techniques. i never found that they were necessary in the field. we didn't use them any place that i was in command. i don't think, though, that's the central issue regarding release of this report. jon: the central issue for you then would be what? the safety of agents and others who are out there? >> well, look, everybody who was involved in this program did so at the direction of the president of the united states with the full knowledge of the congress, with multiple layers of legal review and advice and medical experts involved. so if we have changed our minds and we don't believe we should be doing this, i don't have a problem with that. but hanging people out to dry for doing their jobs to protect more than citizens is wrong. it's indefensible. swrb jon dick cheney, the former vice president, had something to say about this in a telephone interview with "the new york times." i want you to hear his thoughts

and then get your reaction. all right, here's -- i'm sorry. here's what he had to say, i thought we had the recording. what i keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation, and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it, meaning the cia. i think that's all a bunch of hoo by. the agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was reviewed legally by the justice department before they undertook the program. the point being, mr. faddis, is that congress was briefed on what was going on. obviously, the president and the administration were as well. so to the vice president's thinking, nobody was kept in the dark about what the cia was up to. your thoughts? >> right. and on this i would say i have to agree completely with the vice president. this is exactly the point. this is not a rogue operation done behind people's backs. everybody, including the appropriate oversight people on the hill, were aware of this program. nobody objected to it, nobody

tried to stop it. so this characterization that it is a rogue operation is completely false. it is a false narrative. and, frankly, we can't afford this kind of thing. jon: can't afford what, the release of the report? what do you think ability the idea now that these many years later the senate intel committee is going to put these documents out there? >> well, look, first of all, we have the hit that we're going to take in terms of morale, motivation in the agency. you want people to be aggressive, to push the envelope to save lives, and simultaneously they're going to have to worry about whether they're going to be criminally prosecuted or subjected to civil suit. then we have the hit we're going to take overseas. the next time we go to some foreign nation or foreign intel service in the dead of night and ask them to help us on something and assure them that it will be kept secret, they're going to point to this report and these disclosures and likely refuse to cooperate. and people are going to die as a consequence. jon: a sobering thought from

charles faddis, former cia operations officer. charles, thank you. >> thank you. shannon: a key architect of obamacare now says he's sorry for calling americans stupid and that, by the way, he wasn't the architect. mit economist jonathan gruber testifying before the house oversight committee answering questions about obamacare and transparency. right off the top gruber offered his apology for the remarks, you've seen 'em, that were captured on video. >> i'd like to begin by apologizing for the offensive comments i've made. i'm not an expert on politics, and my tone implied i was, which is wrong. shannon: mike emanuel's monitoring all of this live from capitol hill, he has the latest. >> reporter: hi, san -- shannon. a recent area of focus has been a question that jonathan gruber has not wanted to answer, how much has he been paid by the

taxpayers for his consulting on obamacare? gruber, the mit economist, and marilyn tavenner, the medicare administrator, on the hot seat today after gruber's controversial comments about the stupidity of american voters as it relates to obamacare and a lack of transparency. health and human services did not want tavenner at the table with him. that request was denied. here's a sample of the early questioning. >> you stupid? -- are you stupid? >> i don't think so, no. >> does mit employ stupid people? >> not to my knowledge. >> okay. so you're a smart man who said some, as the ranking member said, some really stupid things, and you said the same. is that correct? >> i -- the comments i made were really inexcusable. >> reporter: let's take a live look at the house oversight committee hearing. tavenner has faced questions about telling lawmakers 7.3 million people signed up in the health insurance marketplace, it was revised to 6.7 million as

some folks were double counted. tavenner called that a mistake. today many democrats are more frustrated with gruber. >> i'm extremely frustrated with dr. gruber's statements. they were irresponsible, incredibly disrespectful and did not reflect reality, and they were, indeed, insulting. >> reporter: gruber says he is not the architect of obamacare, and he apologized for inexcusable arrogance. shannon? shannon: mike emanuel live on the hill, thank you, mike. >> reporter: sure. shannon: by the way, we want to dip into that hearing, listen in a bit as obamacare adviser, though not architect, jonathan gruber is being questioned by democrat congressman lynch out of massachusetts. let's listen in a bit. >> they're walking away, and how do we help these employees? because now they're being told go to the exchange, we don't do

that anymore. we're out of the health care business. how do we help those folks? >> well, congressman lynch, i'm not an expert on collective bargaining agreements -- >> i guess. >> what i can say is that the way the cadillac tax was designed, there's no reason that these employers can't provide affordable and comprehensive insurance under the provisions of the cadillac tax. >> it's 40% -- for every dollar over the limit, they're paying $1.40. >> once again, there's no reason they can't provide affordable and comprehensive insurance to their employees under the cadillac tax. >> wait a minute. they're competing with other employers on a bid -- just so you know how this works, if we're bidding on a construction project and you have 49 employees and i have 150, my bid includes $13 an hour for health care. your bill, your bid is zero. how do i win the bid if i'm

putting for every man hour on that job i'm putting $13 on my bid, and you're putting zero on yours? how do i win? i'm out of business. >> there's been a longstanding -- >> you say i can afford it? how do i win that bid if my bid for every man hour on that job i have to put $13 an hour on my bid, and you can put zero and send your people to the exchange or you're not obligated to account for health care. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. gruber can answer. >> there's been -- shannon: you been listening in live to this house oversight hearing, and as weave seen all -- we've seen all morning, jonathan gruber one of the advisers, though he is denying the title architect of obamacare, is taking heat both from republicans and democrats, really pushing him on what the law's about and how it was drafted. if you want to watch the entire hearing, it is streaming live on foxnews.com. we're going to talk with our political panel about gruber's

testimony, what we've heard so far, what we haven't heard. a.b. stoddard and jonah goldberg. jon: a frightening attack on a train. why a suspect told police he stabbed four people on amtrak's blue water line out of chicago. plus, jurors questioned by the judge in montana's stand your ground murder trial, and we want to hear from you. do you believe jonathan tbriewber's remarks -- gruber's remarks could help topple the health care law? our live chat is up and running, just visit foxnews.com/happeningnow, click on america's asking to join the conversation. look, credit karma-- are you talking to websites again? this website says "free credit scores." oh, credit karma! yeah it's actually free. look, you don't have to put in your credit card information. whew! credit karma. really. free. hello... i'm an idaho potato farmer and our big idaho potato truck is still missing. so my buddy here is going to help me find it. here we go.

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jon: a fox news alert, senator dianne feinstein of california, who leads the senate intelligence committee, has been bound and determined to release this report on the cia and its so-calledden hasn'ted interrogation -- enhanced interrogation techniques, what happened in the days after 9/11. the senator apparently not happy

with what the cia did. the report, we are told -- at least the executive summary thereof -- is being released now online in some places, timed to coincide with the senator's floor speech. there you see the well of the senate, i believe that's senator feinstein there in the blue with her back almost to camera. but she'll be making a speech in the well of the senate, the 480-page executive summary of the senate intelligence committee's findings on the cia's enhanced interrogation techniques to be released as she speaks, as she begins to speak. you can find it online in some places now. we'll continue to keep our eye on in this. this could be the big story of the day, and there have been a lot of predictions from conservatives and, frankly, from others who say that release of this could endanger people overseas, our embassies are on high alert as a result of th of.

senator feinstein wants to give it out before republicans take control of the senate, and then republicans then run the intelligence committee, so she has chosen to release it now over the objections, frankly, of secretary of state john kerry and others. when she begins to speak, we'll check in and hear what the senator has to say. ♪ ♪ >> let me be very clear, i do not think that the affordable care act was passed in a nontransparent fashion. shannon: one of the architects of obamacare defending the affordable care act as congress questions the honesty of the process. plus a big apology for remarks about american voters. will jonathan gruber's apology work, or will this be another reason for the republicans to try to throw out the entire health care law? a.b. stoddard, or jonah goldberg, welcome to you both. there was the apology we got first up from dr. gruber, but he also was vehement that he is not

an architect of obamacare, he is rejecting that title. but we know that he's been paid a lot of money to give a lot of advice to hhs is in a number of states for implementing it, so fair for him to now toss aside that title, and does it make a difference? >> well, it's interesting. it doesn't make a difference really what the republicans need to get at is just how instrumental he was, whether you want to use the name architect or not. jonathan gruber was paid more money, and i like to point this out, than anyone except for president obama in this town serving in our government. they, this is $400,000 we're talking about. so republicans what they want to do today is not only get at the legislative intent, which he was very apolo apologetic about in s opening remarks saying he would never have run a model with subsidies for some, that he always intended it to be a program that provided for all. also they want to know how many

meetings were you in with president obama, how instrumental were you earning this $400,000? he's already managed to avoid questions about whether or not it was truly a question, whether or not -- how much money he was actually paid, and he also has denied being an architect. so at this point the republicans have not gotten out of him what they want to. it might be a long day for him, but he thought if he called his comments mean, uncalled for, stupid or anything else, maybe it would end, and it's not going to. shannon: well, jonah, at least some democrats think the republicans have gotten a lot of miles out of this. elijiah cummings very upset saying, basically, you gave the gop a pr gift as they want to dismantle the law, and he said you wrapped it up with a bow. >> it's true, and it's the first time, i mean, this metaphor of being thrown under the bus is kind of losing its utility because this is the first time i've seen someone keel hauled

under a bus. what cummings said about him was brutal. you know, i want to put a point on something that ab said that, yeah, he got paid at least $400,000 by the feds, but he made vastly more than that by letting the world at least think he was the architect of obamacare. when gruber says he wasn't the architect of obamacare now, he let newspapers across this country and television networks and interviewers and people introducing him at speeches call him the architect without, to my knowledge, ever objecting to it. if someone called me in the popular press a flamenco dancer for years and only when i was called before congress i say, hey, look, i'm not a flamenco dancer, that doesn't cut it. he made enormous amounts of money for his consulting, he's told people he helped draft the legislation, and now he says he's no expert on the politics of health care, that's nonsense. anybody in this town who's ever reported on health care or ever

talked to health care experts would consider him one of the foremost experts in the world on the american health care system. so his pleading of ignorance now is awfully convenient. shannon: jonah, put me down as one who would like to see you do the flamenco dance. those of us who know you would love to see that. for a price, i'm sure. [laughter] ab, you touched on this, there's a big case in the spring that deals with sub cities that are -- subsidies and gruber's comments on that in a number of places saying, listen, if your state doesn't set up an exchange, you don't get the subsidies, your people don't get the money. that's been a tough problem for him. but he said in his testimony this morning it's being taken out of context, he said i was worried about the federal exchange wouldn't have been created. does that make sense to you? i'm sorry, i need a quick answer here. >> that's the crux of the argument, were states incentivized to build their exchanges only because they'd be the only ones getting the subsidies or not.

shannon: thank you very much. we've got breaking news on the new cia intel report. thank you both for your time. >> thank you. shannon: jon? jon: the report that all of washington has been waiting for and in some cases dreading is now officially out. the executive summary of the senate intelligence committee's 6,000-page report on the cia and its conduct in the days and years after the nerve attacks -- 9/11 attacks is now out in the public domain. it finds that the cia apparently, according to this report, routinely misled the white house and congress about the information that it obtained from the detention and interrogation of terror suspects. it also says that the cia's interrogation methods were more brutal than it has admitted to. it also accuses the cia of overstating the administration -- i'm sorry, the information that it received as a result of techniques like waterboarding and one more thing, one more little nugget,

the cia has priestly said that only -- previously said that only three isn'ts, including khalid sheikh mohammed, were summited to waterboarding. this report apparently finds there were other subjects of waterboarding that the cia has not talked about. again, it is going to be the topic in washington today. there you see senator angus king of maine who is, apparently, chairing the committee for today. senator diane dianne feinstein is going to be reading from the elements, i'm sorry, from the executive summary of the report she's going to be taking to the well of the senate momentarily. at any rate, we will continue to keep our eye on that. it is a huge story. joining us to talk about it, former cia analyst and senior managing -- i'm sorry, senior analyst and managing editor of lignet.com, fred nice. fred -- fleiss.

do you think this report should be released? >> well, jon, it's worth noting that this report was originally approved on a bipartisan basis by all the republican members of the intelligence committee except for one, because there are republicans who had some problems with this, with this program, the enhanced interrogation program. when it became clear this was not going to be an objective investigation, the republicans pulled out. now, i was a cia analyst for 19 years, i was with the house intelligence committee for five years, this is not how congressional oversight is supposed to be done. this report was written entirely by the democratic staff, and they refused to look at all the facts. there were no interviews. former cia director michael hayden has said clearly this program was valuable to stopping terrorist attacks. i would think he had some useful information that this investigation should have used, but they refused to interview him or anyone. jon: do you think this is a partisan report? >> it is the most partisan

report produced by congress in the time i've worked in national security. this was a precooked report, and the reason they didn't talk to people like hayden and jose rodriguez and other former cia officials is because they did not want this precooked report to be spoiled by inconvenient facts. jon: well, you know, talking about the facts, i have not read the report yet, i am just reading some of what's coming out about it because it's only just now being released since we have taken air with this program. but, for instance, one of the conclusions of the report is that there were a number of other suspects that were subjected to waterboarding, more than the cia had earlier reported. why, why would that, why would that information just be coming out now? why was the cia -- why would the cia not admitted to that earlier? >> this report was based entirely on a document search. we had to talk to officials who were responsible for these documents. there could be errors in the

documentation. but second, there's no doubt in my mind that mistakes were made in this program. there may have been some abuses, and that's why republicans wanted an honest evaluation of this program. it was conducted immediately in the aftermath of 9/11 when, basically, the white house was given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to defend our country against terrorism. of course some mistakes were made, and it's a shame we didn't have an honest, bipartisan assessment of this program to find out what those mistakes were. jon: well, how would you have made it more honest? i mean, you say we needed an honest, bipartisan assessment. how would you have achieved that? >> we should have had republican and democratic staffers working cooperatively to determine the facts of this case. there would have been a bipartisan body of the report, and then republicans and democrats would submit additional views and where they didn't agree on the bipartisan body of the report. the bipartisan body of this report is entirely democratic.

it reflects longtime democratic positions on the enhanced interrogation program which they call torture. so in my mind, this doesn't say anything new. we always knew democrats didn't like the enhanced interrogation program. jon: if you would be good enough to stay with us, we need to take a quick commercial break. we'd like to hear your thoughts on senator feinstein speaking momentarily, back with more.

jon: senator dianne feinstein of california speaking now in the u.s. senate about the release of this report on the cia and its enhanced interrogation techniques. let's listen. >> the report, released today, examines the cia's secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques, in some cases amounting to torture. over the past couple of weeks, i've gone through a great deal of introspection about whether to delay the release of this report to a later time.

this colorly is a period -- clearly is a period of turmoil and instability in many parts of the world. unfortunately, that's going to continue for the foreseeable future whether this report is released or not. there are those who will seize upon the report and say see what the americans did? and they will try to use it to justify evil actions or incite more violence. we can't prevent that. but history will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say never again. there may never be the right time to release this report. the instability we see today will not be resolved in months or years, but this report is too important to shelve indefinitely. my determination to release it

has also increased due to a campaign of mistaken statements and press articles launched against the report before anyone has had the chance to read it. as a matter of fact, the report is just now, as i speak, being released. this is what it looks like. i -- senator chambliss asked me if we could have the minority report bound with the majority report for this draft that is not possible, but in the final draft it will be bound together. but this is what the summary of the 6,000 pages look like. my words give me no pleasure. i'm releasing this report because i know there are thousands of employees at the cia who do not condone what i will spook about this morning -- speak about this morning and who workday and night, long hours within the law for america's

security in what is certainly a difficult world. my colleagues on the intelligence committee and i am proud of them, just as everyone in this chamber is. and we will always support them. in reviewing the study in the past few days with the decision looming over the public release, i was struck by a quote found on page 126 of the executive summary. it cites the former cia inspector general, john hell gerson, who in 2005 wrote the following to the then-director of the cia which clearly states the situation with respect to this report years later as well. and i quote: we have found that the agency over the decades has continued to get itself into messes related to interrogation programs for one overriding

reason, we do not document and learn from our experience. each generation of officers is left to improvise anew with problematic results for our officers as individuals and for our agency. i believe that to be true. i agree with mr. helgerson. his comments are true today, but this must change. on march 11, 2009, the committee voted 14-1 to begin a review of the cia's detention and interrogation program. over the past five years, a small team of committee investigators pored over the more than 6.3 million pages of cia records the leader spoke about to complete this report or what we call "the study." it shows that the cia's actions

a decade ago are a stain on our value and on our history. the release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that america is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn there its mistakes. from its members. releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world that we are, in fact, a just and lawful society. over the next hour, i'd like to lay out for senators and the american mix the report's key findings and conclusions. and i ask that when i complete this, senator mccain be recognized. before i get to the substance of the report, i'd like to make a few comments about why it's so important that we make this study public. all of us have vivid memories of

that tuesday morning when terror struck new york, washington and pennsylvania. make no mistake, september 11th, 2011, war was declared on the united states. terrorists struck our financial center, they struck our military center, and they tried to strike our political center and would have had brave and courageous passengers not brought down the plane. we still vividly remember the mix of outrage and deep despair and sadness as we watched from washington. smoke rising from the pentagon, the passenger plane lying in a pennsylvania field, the sound of bodies striking canopies at ground level as innocents jumped to the ground below from the world trade center. mass terror that we often see

abroad had struck us directly in our front yard, killing 3,000 innocent men, women and children. what happened? we came together as a nation. the values of america came into play, where the rule of law and the fundamental principles of right and wrong become important. in 990 the united states senate ratified the convention against torture. the convention makes clear that this ban against torture is absolute. out says, and i quote: -- it says, and i quote: no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including what i just read, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal

political instability or any other public emergency may be invoked as a justification for torture. end quote. nonetheless, it was argued that the need for information on possible additional terrorist plots after 9/11 made extraordinary interrogation techniques necessary. even if one were to set aside all of the moral arguments, our review was a meticulous and detailed examination of records. it finds that coercive interrogation techniques did not produce the vital, otherwise unavailable intelligence the cia has claimed. i will go into further detail on this issue in a moment, but let me make clear these comments are not a condemnation of the cia as a whole. the cia plays an incredibly

important part in our nation's security and has thousands of dedicated and talented employees. what we have found is that surprisingly few people were responsible for designing, carrying out and managing this program. two contractors developed and led the interrogations. there was little effective oversight. analysts, analysts on occasion gave operational orders that interrogations and cia management of the program was weak and diffused. our final report was approved by a bipartisan vote of 9-6 in december 2012. and exposes brutality in stark contrast to our values as a nation. this effort was focused on the actions of the cia from late

2001 to january of 2009. the report does not include considerable detail on the cia's interactions with the white house. excuse me, it does include considerable detail on the cia's interactions with the white house, the departments of justice, state, defense and the senate intelligence committee. the review is based on contemporaneous records and documents during the time the program was in place and active. now, these documents are important because they aren't based on recollection. they aren't based on revision, and they aren't a rationalization a decade later. it's these documents referenced repeatedly in thousands of footnotes that provide the factual basis for the study's conclusions.

the committee's majority staff reviewed more than 6.3 million pages of these documents provided by the cia as well as records from other departments and agencies. these records include finished intelligence assessments, cia operational and intelligence cables, memoranda, e-mails, realtime chat sessions, inspector general reports, testimony before congress, pictures and other internal records. it's true, we didn't conduct our own interviews, and let me tell you why that was the case. in 2009 there was an ongoing review by department of justice special prosecutor john durham. on august 24th attorney general holder expanded that review. this occurred six months after

our study had begun. durham's original investigation of the cia's destruction of interrogation videotapes was broadened to include possible criminal actions of cia employees in the course of cia detention and interrogation activities. at the time, the committee's vice chairman, kit bond, withdrew the minority's participation in the study. citing the attorney general's expanded investigation as the reason. the county of justice -- the department of justice refused to coordinate its investigation with the intelligence committee's review. as a result, possible interviewees could be subject to additional liability if they were interviewed. and the cia, citing the torn general's investigation -- the attorney general's investigation, would not

instruct its employees to participate in interviews. notwithstanding this, i am really confident of the factual accuracy and comprehensive nature of this report for three reasons. first, it's the 6.3 million pages of documents reviewed, ask they reveal records of actions as those actions took place, not through recollections more than a decade later. second, the cia and cia senior officers have taken the opportunity to explain their views on cia detention and interrogation of operations. they have done this in on-the-record statements in classified committee hearings, written testimony and answer to questions and through the formal response to the committee in june 2013 after reading the study.

and, third, the committee had access to and utilized an extensive set of reports of interviews conducted by the cia inspector general and the cia's oral history program. so while we could not conduct new interviews of individuals, we did utilize transcripts or summaries of interviews of those directly engaged in detention and interrogation operations. these interviews occurred at the time the program was operational and covered the exact topics we would have asked about had we conducted interviews ourselves. these interview reports and transcripts included but were not limited to the following: george tenet, director of the cia when the agency took custody and interrogated the majority of

detainees, jose rodriguez, director of the cia's counterterrorism center, a key player in the program, cia general counsel scott muller, cia deputy director of operations, james pavitt, john riso and cia director john mclaughlin. and a variety of interrogators, lawyers, medical personnel, senior counterterrorism analysts and managers of the detention and interrogation program. the best place to start about i i -- about how we got into this -- and i'm delighted that senator rockefeller is on the floor -- is a little more than eight years ago on september 6th, 2006, when the committee met to be briefed by then-director michael hayden. at that 2006 meeting, the full

committee learned for the first time, for the first time of the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques or eits. it was a short meeting, in part because president bush was making a public speech later that day disclosing officially for the first time the existence of cia black sites and announcing the transfer of 14 detainees from cia custody to guantanamo bay, cuba. it was the first time the interrogation program was explained to the full committee as details had previously been limited to the chairman and vice chairman. then on december 7th, the times reported that cia personnel in 2005 had destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of two cia

detainees. the cia's first detainee as well the committee had not been informed of the destruction of the tapes. days later, on december 11th, 2007, the committee held a hearing on the destruction of the videotapes. director hayden, the primary witness, testified that the cia had concluded that the destruction of videotapes was acceptable in part because congress had not yet requested to see them. my source is our committee's transcript, december 11th, 2007. director hayden stated that if the committee had asked for the videotapes, they would have been provided. but, of course, the committee didn't. and we now know from cia e-mails

and records that the videotapes were destroyed shortly after cia attorneys raised concerns that congress might find out about the tapes. in any case, at that same december 11th committee hearing, director hayden told the committee that cia cables related to the interrogation sessions depicted in the videotapes were, and i quote: a more than adequate representation of the tapes and, therefore, be you want them -- if you want them, we'll give you access to them. that's at the december 2007 hearing. senator rockefeller, then chairman of the committee, designated two members of the committee staff to review the cables describing the interrogation sessions of abu sa buy da and al-nashiri.

senator bond, then-vice chairman, similarly directed two of his staffers to review the cables. the designated staff members completed their review and compiled a summary of the content in 2009 by which time i had become chairman. finish the description -- the description in the cables of cia's interrogations and the treatment of detainees presented a starkly different picture from director hayden's testimony before the committee. they described brutal, around-the-clock interrogations, especially of abu sa buy da in which multiple coercive techniques were used in combination and with substantial repetition. it was an ugly, visorral description. the summer also indicated --

summary also indicated that the suspects did not, as a result of the use of these so-called eits, provide the kind of intelligence that led the cia to stop terrorist plots or arrest additional suspects. as a result, i think it's fair to say the entire committee was concerned, and it had proved the scope of an investigation by a vote -- it approved the scope of an investigation by a vote of 14-1, and the work began. in my march 11, 2014, floor speech about the study, i described how in 2009 the committee came to an agreement with the new cia director, leon panetta, for access to documents and other records about the cia's detention and interrogation program, so i won't repeat that here. from 2009 to 2012, our staff conducted a massive and unprecedented review of cia

records. draft sections of the report were produced by late 2011 and showered with the full committee -- shared with the full committee. the final report was completed in december 2012 and approved by the committee by a bipartisan vote of 9-6. after that vote i sent the full report to the president and asked the administration to provide comments on it before it was released. six months later, in june of 2013, the cia responded. i directed then that if the cia pointed out any error in our report, we would fix it, and we did fix one bullet point that did not impact our findings and conclusions. if the cia came to a different conclusion than the report did, we would note that in the report and explain our reasons for disagreeing if we disagreed. and you will see some of that

documented in the footnotes of that executive summary as well as in the 6,000 pagings. in april -- pages. in april 2014 the committee prepared an updated version of the to full study and voted 12-3 to declassify and release the executive summary, findings and conclusions and minority and additional views. on august 1 we received a declassified version from the executive branch. it was immediately apparent that the redactions to our report prevented a clear and understandable reading of the study and prevented -- jon: senator dianne feinstein, the outgoing chair of the senate intelligence committee, has let it be known that she's going to be talking for nearly an hour. if you'd like to continue to hear her speak, we have the it streaming live at foxnews.com. also you'll certainly be able to get transcripts of her remarks a

bit later online. joining us now to talk about what she is saying, the gentleman we were talking to earlier, former cia senior analyst and managing editor of lignet.com, fred fleitz. two things stand out here. first of all, this was a report compiled only by democratic staff members of the intelligence committee, correct? >> that's right. jon: and also they did not actually interview people like the former directors of the cia, george tenet and michael hay depp. why not? -- hayden? why not the? >> well, she is claiming that she couldn't, these people couldn't be interviewed because there was a special prosecutor or investigating the destruction of tapes of people who were subjected to the enhanced interrogation program and that that investigation was enlarged. and according to feinstein, she couldn't interview cia officials because that would place them in legal jeopardy for this investigation. republicans didn't buy that

which is why they pulled out of this investigation in the fall of 2009. but assuming that was a valid argument, jon, keep in mind that special prosecutor shut down his investigation in august of 2012. so there's been two years that senator feinstein and her democratic staff could have interviewed the people who they are accused of very serious violations; violations of the law, of lying to congress, of lying to the president. thce to explain themselves, they weren't given a chance to defend themselves. jon: yeah. well, again, this is going to be the story of the day, and there may be a reason for that. fred fleitz, we have to say good-bye. we thank you for sticking with us through those opening remarks from the senator. shannon: joining us now, k.t. mcfarland, your reaction, first of all, on the timing of this release. there's been so much back and forth, and today it comes despite continued objections and at one time the objections were coming from the white house.

the white house now seems okay with the disclosure. what do you make of it? >> well, there are two things. one is, okay, one thing to actually investigate and do the report. there's another issue is why make the report public? why make the report prick now? -- public now? there should be one major rule in foreign policy like in medicine, first do no harm. by releasing this report now three thicks are going to happen -- things are going to happen. one, it gives excuse for a revenge attack on americans. secondly, foreign intelligence agencies look at this and say we can't trust america to keep secrets, we're not going to cooperate with america. we're not going to share our intelligence. and then finally, what it does is tells everybody who works in the american intelligence community, watch out. you may do something that you think is justified and legal, but ten years later you could be investigated for this, you could be called out, you could be put in danger. so i look at all of that and say one thing to write the report, another thing to do harm by releasing the report publicly. shannon: all right. we have in the past been told

and some democratic lawmakers have admitted they were briefed on these things years and years ago, and we all remember the days after 9/11 when people were afraid. there was some unity about going after these guys and getting the intelligence that we could. the report is now saying the intelligence didn't really help, these enhanced interrogation techniques didn't really take us anywhere. plenty of folks were saying, yes, they did, and they're pointing to specific instances of where those techniques actually led to actionable intelligence. your take? >> two claims. one, what was done was illegal. no, it wasn't. the legal advice at the time to the americans who were conducting these was, yeah, it was legal. it was done in the aftermath of september 11th. i live in new york. we assumed there was another attack coming imminently. the second thing was what was the intelligence gathered, was it effective? look, we've had three former directors of the cia, deputy directors of the cia, people involved in the hunt for usama

bin laden, they have all said they got a lot of intelligence from this. so it was legal, it was effective, why go after it now? unless the motivation's completely political. congress is changing hands, the senate is going from democrat to republican hands, and are the democrats in the senate just -- they've been evicted from the house, are they just trashing the place before they leave? shannon: well, they're certainly getting the information out there over plenty of objections. kt, thank you for your expertise. >> thanks, shannon. jon: so that is the report coming out led by democratic senator dianne feinstein of california. again, that report includes -- concludes that the former directors of the cia, george tenet, porter goss, michael hayden repeatedly inflated the value of the enhanced interrogation techniques that the cia used to get information from terror suspects in the wake of the worst terror attack ever on nation, the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

again, the republican members of the intelligence committee staff did not participate. back with more in a moment.

>> a lot still to talk about. see you in an how were. >> "outnumbered" starts now. >> fox news alert now. we're looking live at the senate floor. chair of the senate intelligence committee dianne feinstein is speaking after the release of a controversial report on the c.i.a.'s enhanced interrogation program. this as there are concerns against violent retaliation against americans around the globe. this is "outnumbered." here today -- today's hashtag one lucky guy, o'reilly factor jessie waters is outnumbered. >> good to see you. >> hot