CIA Director John Brennan took an extraordinary step Thursday to contain the roiling controversy over his agency’s past use of aggressive interrogation techniques: inviting journalists and cameras to the spy agency’s secretive headquarters and conducting a full-scale press conference that was carried on live television around the world. 
 
 But he struck a largely defensive tone, praising the integrity of the agency’s workforce while conceding that some of its personnel used techniques that “had not been authorized, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all.” 
 
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 Brennan threaded a needle on the effectiveness of tactics that many view as torture, such as waterboarding. He insisted that detainees subjected to what the agency calls “enhanced interrogation techniques” gave up “useful and valuable” information, but conceded that it can’t be said whether the harsh treatment yielded that information. 
 
 That is “unknown and unknowable,” he said. 
 
 Asked if torture helped draw out information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, Brennan demurred, saying only that individuals who were subjected to the techniques “provided information that was useful and was used” in the hunt for the Al Qaeda leader. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: John Brennan's zigzag on torture) 
 
 Brennan’s news conference came two days after the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report blasted the Central Intelligence Agency for abusing detainees and severely mismanaging its interrogation program in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. 
 
 According to agency officials, Brennan spoke to the CIA’s work force on Wednesday, trying to quell concern about the Senate report’s impact on the agency’s personnel, their reputations and morale. Thursday’s press conference was clearly intended as an effort to convey a similar message of support to a wider audience. 
 
 Projecting an image of solidarity, about 30 senior agency officials sat directly in front of the director as he spoke. They also served as a buffer of sorts between Brennan and a larger number of reporters who traveled to the Langley, Va. complex to question the director about the report that rocked the agency this week and the conduct it details, including tactics President Barack Obama has banned and described this week as “brutal.” 
 
 Brennan began his appearance with a 20-minute speech that opened with a dramatic description of the 9/11 attacks and attempted to invoke the sense of fear in which the harsh interrogation program was devised. 
 
 Regardless of one’s views on enhanced interrogation techniques, “our nation and, in particular, this agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country safe and secure,” he said. 
 
 The “overwhelming majority” of the agency’s workforce “carried out their responsibilities faithfully,” he argued. “They did what they were asked to do in the service of our nation.” 
 
 (POLITICO Magazine: Michael Hayden is not sorry) 
 
 Brennan also said that the agency’s people have been “touched by the outpouring of support” from outsiders as the CIA came under withering criticism in recent days. 
 
 Despite his clear desire to elicit sympathy for CIA personnel, he conceded that some officers had gone too far in their interrogations and that the agency didn’t do enough to supervise them. 
 
 “In many ways this was uncharted territory for the CIA and we were not prepared,” he said. “We fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes,” Brennan said. 
 
 Throughout his remarks, Brennan described his agency’s conduct as enhanced interrogation techniques or EITs, and not as “torture” — the term that Obama has used. Pressed on his avoidance of that characterization, Brennan said he “will leave to others how they might want to label” the CIA’s practices. 
 
 He also declined to say whether he supported the release of the Senate summary report on the interrogation techniques, but indicated that he believes too much been revealed. 
 
 “I think there is more than enough transparency that has happened over the last couple of days,” he said, in what seemed to be an exasperated and heartfelt aside. “I think it’s over the top.” 
 
 At another point, the director made plain his distaste for the events of the past few days. 
 
 “There is a lot of exaggeration, misrepresentation of the facts, and therefore I think certain agendas are being pursued,” he said while discussing international reaction to the report. “I certainly wish that this would not be happening.” 
 
 Brennan’s appearance represented the first on-camera response by a current Obama administration official to some of the central claims in the Senate report: namely that the CIA misled Congress, the White House and the public about the program, and that the interrogations were not effective in producing intelligence that saved lives by heading off terrorist plots. 
 
 While the CIA’s written response to the Senate report disputed those conclusions, the White House and the president have repeatedly refused to say whether they agree with the Senate panel on those points or with the spy agency. 
 
 Brennan seemed most exercised Thursday about the Senate panel’s suggestion that agency personnel repeatedly and likely intentionally gave false information to their overseers about the interrogation effort. 
 
 Meanwhile, Senate Intelligence panel Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s staff ran a real-time fact-check of Brennan’s remarks through her Twitter account, @SenFeinstein, adding the hashtag #ReadTheReport. 
 
 “We gave the committee our full support” as it started its study in 2009, Brennan said. But, he noted, Feinstein’s staff did not interview CIA staff. “It was unusual,” he said. 
 
 While the report is “flawed,” much of it is “consistent with our own internal findings,” Brennan said. 
 
 White House news secretary Josh Earnest would not say whether Brennan — who was at the White House on Thursday morning for the President’s Daily Briefing — had discussed the rare press conference with the president. 
 
 “This is a decision that Director Brennan made,” Earnest said. “It’s one that he should make.” 
 
 Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and other critics of the techniques have called for Brennan’s resignation, but none of the 11 reporters who questioned him over roughly 25 minutes asked about the status of his job or whether he is the best person to lead the agency at this time due to the fact he was also in CIA leadership during the post-9/11 years. The White House has repeatedly said that Obama has full confidence in Brennan. 
 
 Brennan did say, in response to a question, that he was aware of aspects of the interrogation program at the time it took place. 
 
 “I was not in the chain of command; I did not have authority over the implementation of that program or the management oversight of it,” he added. 
 
 The CIA director did not answer a portion of a question about whether he “expressed reservations” about the interrogation effort while it was underway. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a 2013 questionnaire that he “had significant concerns and personal objections” to some of the techniques and shared those thoughts with others at the agency. 
 
 By speaking out now, Brennan appeared to be making a decisive bid to extinguish the public firestorm that engulfed the spy agency this week. Debate over the interrogation program in the media seems certain to continue at a fairly intense level at least through the Sunday television talk shows, one of which will feature former Vice President Dick Cheney defending the use of techniques like waterboarding and confining suspects in small spaces. 
 
 The CIA, Obama and his close aides have made abundantly clear that they’re eager to put this particular flurry of news coverage behind them. The decision to have Brennan speak out definitively and at length on the subject Thursday could diminish media interest in dogging him about the subject at any future public speeches or interviews. ||||| Washington (CNN) -- CIA Director John Brennan on Thursday defended harsh interrogation techniques as providing "useful" information to authorities, including in the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. But he said it is "unknowable" what information could specifically be attributed to those techniques. 
 
 "It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against Bin Laden," Brennan said. 
 
 Brennan's comments, in a rare news conference, come two days after a Senate panel released a blockbuster 528-page report detailing "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- including mock executions, "rectal rehydration," sleep deprivation and beatings -- in interrogations in the mid-2000s. 
 
 He admitted that some CIA officers' actions were "not authorized, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all. And we fell short in holding some officers accountable for their mistakes." 
 
 Brennan acknowledged that the agency sometimes exceeded its legal authority during interrogations of terrorism suspects. 
 
 RELATED: CIA feared for future of interrogation program, report shows 
 
 He said detainees who faced "enhanced interrogation techniques" did provide some information that provided useful -- as well as other information that didn't. He said whether those interrogations had anything to do with that information is "unknowable." 
 
 "Let me be clear: We have not concluded that it was the EITs within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from the detainees subjected to them," he said. 
 
 But he staunchly defended the agency during the 45-minute news conference, adding: "CIA officers' actions that did comport with the law and policy should neither be criticized nor conflated with the actions of the few who did not follow the guidance issued." 
 
 Brennan opened his remarks with a vivid depiction of the events of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and described the atmosphere going into fighting terrorism and collecting intelligence in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. 
 
 "There were no easy answers, and whatever your views are on [enhanced interrogation techniques], our nation and in particular this agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country strong and secured," Brennan said. 
 
 RELATED: Who is John Brennan? 
 
 Brennan praised those who worked with him but he added the agency was "unprepared to conduct a detention and interrogation program, and our officers inadequately developed and monitored its initial activities." 
 
 Brennan never used the word "torture" to describe the CIA's tactics. And he deflected a question about whether, in the interest of transparency, he supported the Senate Intelligence Committee's decision to release its report. 
 
 "I think there's been more than enough transparency that's happened over the last couple days," he said. "I think it's over the top." 
 
 Brennan said it's "lamentable" that the Senate panel didn't conduct interviews with CIA agents -- a contrast, he said, with its handling of a report on Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction, which included interviews with more than 200 officers. 
 
 His strongest criticism of the report was with its contention that the CIA misled the public and government officials -- including then-President George W. Bush. That, Brennan said, is untrue -- a stance former Vice President Dick Cheney backed up in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night. 
 
 Still, he didn't fault the report's finding that the CIA's tactics were harsh and, at times, went beyond the legal authority Bush's Justice Department said the agency had. 
 
 "Many aspects of their conclusions are sound and consistent with our own prior findings," Brennan said. "Over the years, internal agency reviews, including numerous investigations by our office of the inspector general, found fault in the CIA's running of the program. We have acknowledged these mistakes." 
 
 Brennan was the CIA's deputy executive director while the tactics were being used. He said he had "some visibility" into what was happening, but that he wasn't in the chain of command for that program, and didn't say whether he had made any effort to push for changes at the time. 
 
 He also noted that the program for using "enhanced interrogation techniques" was ended in 2007. 
 
 "In light of the fact that these techniques were banned seven years ago, however, my fervent hope is that we can put aside this debate and move on to issues that are relevant to our current national security challenges," Brennan said. 
 
 Meanwhile, one of Brennan's sharpest critics, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the committee behind the report, live-tweeted along with the press conference and sharply rebutted several points throughout his press conference. 
 
 This story was updated to include additional information ||||| The CIA's internal watchdog will resign at the end of January, a departure that comes just months after his office found that the spy agency had hacked into computers used by Senate staffers to investigate its Bush-era "enhanced interrogation techniques," the CIA said Monday. 
 
 David Buckley will leave the agency on Jan. 31 to "pursue an opportunity in the private sector," the CIA said in a statement. Christopher Sharpley, the deputy CIA inspector general, will serve as acting inspector general upon Buckley's departure. 
 
 The CIA indicated that Buckley's resignation was both amicable and planned, although it comes after a particularly tumultuous year for the agency, which was enveloped in controversy leading up to the release last month of the Senate torture report. 
 
 "David has served the CIA and the American public as our inspector general for more than four years," CIA Director John Brennan said in the statement. "Throughout his tenure, he has demonstrated independence, integrity, and sound judgment in promoting efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability at CIA." 
 
 In July, Buckley's office concluded that CIA employees had covertly hacked into computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers to investigate the spy agency's harsh interrogation methods deployed at foreign blacksites during the George W. Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 
 
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 Buckley's findings represented a stunning rebuke of the CIA and Director Brennan, who had emphatically denied allegations lobbed by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein that the agency had accessed her panel's computers in order to remove certain documents—a maneuver she described in a fiery floor speech as a likely violation of the Constitution. 
 
 Feinstein: 'CIA's Search May Well Have Violated' the Constitution 
 
 "As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth.… That's beyond the scope of reason," Brennan said at the time. 
 
 But Buckley's office concluded that some CIA employees had in fact attempted to retrieve certain agency documents without appropriate permission. The hacking was "inconsistent with the common understanding" brokered between the CIA and its Senate overseers, agency spokesman Dean Boyd said at the time. 
 
 Buckley's investigation forced Brennan to apologize to Feinstein and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the panel's top Republican. It also prompted Brennan to submit Buckley's findings to an accountability board led by retired Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh. The board's review is ongoing, but The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, reported last month that the panel would recommend against punishing any employees involved in the hacking scandal. 
 
 In a statement, Feinstein praised Buckley for serving with "distinction and intergrity" during his four years as CIA inspector general. 
 
 "It is critically important to have a strong, independent inspector general at the CIA due to the nature of the work done there, and Mr. Buckley filled the role admirably," she added. 
 
 The still-secret document that prompted the CIA's spying on its Senate overseers is known as the Panetta Review, an internal examination of the agency's enhanced-interrogation program commissioned by former CIA Director Leon Panetta. 
 
 Several Democratic senators have said the Panetta Review corroborates their report, which stated that the use of extreme techniques such as waterboarding did not lead to valuable national security intelligence and that the CIA systematically misled the White House, Congress, and the public about the severity and importance of the program. 
 
 Former Sen. Mark Udall used his final speech from the Senate floor last month to allude to the Panetta Review's conclusions. He called it a "smoking gun" that showed the CIA is continuing to be dishonest about its now-defunct enhanced-interrogation program, which several former agency officials strongly defended after the Senate torture report's release in December. 
 
 Udall: 'The C.I.A. Is Lying' 
 
 "The refusal to provide the full Panetta Review and the refusal to acknowledge facts detailed in both the committee study and the Panetta Review lead to one disturbing finding: Director Brennan and the CIA today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture," Udall said. "In other words: The CIA is lying." 
 
 Director Brennan has said the CIA has no plans to make any part of the Panetta Review public, as it was outside the bounds of the agreement brokered between Feinstein and Panetta when the intelligence panel began its investigation in 2009. 
 
 Buckley was nominated by President Obama to become inspector general and confirmed by the Senate on Sept. 29, 2010. He is leaving the CIA after nearly 35 years in the federal government, the agency said. It would not immediately disclose where in the private sector Buckley was headed. ||||| America 
 
 Report Says CIA Misled Congress, White House On Interrogation Program 
 
 i itoggle caption Reuters/Landov Reuters/Landov 
 
 The CIA "provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, the CIA inspector general, the media and the American public" about the "brutal" interrogation techniques it used on terrorism suspects, a long-held Senate intelligence committee report finds. 
 
 The report provides the most comprehensive public accounting of the interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 
 
 It looked at more than 6 million pages of CIA material over the course of more than three years, and it came to two major conclusions: The CIA misrepresented the interrogation techniques it was using at secret prisons abroad, and it also overstated the techniques' efficacy. The report details the techniques used on detainees and found that those interrogations led to no useful intelligence. 
 
 The report does not use the word torture, and it doesn't weigh the legality of the program. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the intelligence committee, writes in the report that it is her "personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured." 
 
 The CIA rejects those criticisms, saying the Senate report is wrong. 
 
 In a statement, Director John Brennan admitted to some "shortcomings" and said the CIA had implemented some "remedial measures." 
 
 "Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives," Brennan said. "The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qaida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day." 
 
 What's in it is so sensitive and controversial that the report's release has sparked public spats between the CIA and Senate lawmakers. 
 
 It all came to a dramatic head on the floor of the Senate in March. Feinstein accused the CIA of trying to thwart her committee's work by deleting files and later by illegally spying on Senate computers. The CIA — which eventually apologized to the Senate — had accused Feinstein and her committee of improperly removing classified documents from a government network. 
 
 Today, the Senate made public a 500-page executive summary of the report, which still remains classified. 
 
 Announcing its release, Feinstein said the report found a program that is a "stain on our values and our history." But she said it is important to release this report because it will show the world that "America is big enough to admit when it is wrong." 
 
 The release of this report is important, she said, because the U.S. needs to "face an ugly truth and say never again." 
 
 We'll use this space to post the document and share what we learn as we learn it. To see the latest, refresh this page. 
 
 Updated at 4:46 p.m. ET Ex-CIA Official On NPR 
 
 Former Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin tells NPR's Audie Cornish that "every charge in here is off-base." 
 
 "We may have made a few terrorists uncomfortable for a short period of time in order to get information that we felt was essential to protecting the United States," he said. 
 
 You can listen to the full interview on All Things Considered. 
 
 Update at 1:37 p.m. ET. Former CIA Directors Reject Findings: 
 
 Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA Directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John McLaughlin, Albert Calland and Stephen Kappes defended the CIA. 
 
 They say this report is critically flawed. Specifically, they say the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques led to important intelligence and helped in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. 
 
 They write: 
 
 "There is no doubt that information provided by the totality of detainees in CIA custody, those who were subjected to interrogation and those who were not, was essential to bringing bin Laden to justice. The CIA never would have focused on the individual who turned out to be bin Laden's personal courier without the detention and interrogation program. "Specifically, information developed in the interrogation program piqued the CIA's interest in the courier, placing him at the top of the list of leads to bin Laden. A detainee subjected to interrogation provided the most specific information on the courier. Additionally, KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libi—both subjected to interrogation—lied about the courier at a time when both were providing honest answers to a large number of other critical questions. Since other detainees had already linked the courier to KSM and Abu Faraj, their dissembling about him had great significance. "So the bottom line is this: The interrogation program formed an essential part of the foundation from which the CIA and the U.S. military mounted the bin Laden operation." 
 
 Update at 12:22 p.m. ET. Minority View: 
 
 The committee's Republican minorities view the report as flawed, saying it is biased and does not take into account the context in which these programs were formed, and because the committee did not talk to key witnesses. 
 
 Here's a small excerpt from their report (pdf): 
 
 "With respect to the standard of objectivity, we were disappointed to find that the updated Study still contains evidence of strongly held biases. John Brennan emphasized this point prior to his confirmation as the Director of the CIA, when he told Vice Chairman Chambliss that, based on his reading of the originally approved Executive Summary and the Findings and Conclusions, the Study was 'not objective' and was a 'prosecutor's brief,' written with an eye toward finding problems. "We agree with Director Brennan's assessments. We also agree with the criticism he relayed from Intelligence Community officials that it was written with a 'bent on the part of the authors' with 'political motivations.'" 
 
 Update at 12:14 p.m. ET. Detainees Were Tortured: 
 
 The report does not use the word torture and it doesn't weigh the legality of the program. 
 
 But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, writes in the report that it is her "personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured." 
 
 Update at 11:45 a.m. ET. 'Contrary To Our Values': 
 
 In a statement, President Obama said his predecessors were making decisions after an unprecedented attack on the United States. The U.S., he said, did many things right. 
 
 But what this committee finds today is "contrary to our values." 
 
 "Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America's standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners," Obama said. "That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again." 
 
 Update at 11:27 a.m. ET. No New Charges: 
 
 A Justice Department official says they will bring no new charges in response to the report. 
 
 The Justice Department launched two criminal investigations in 2009 and decided against bringing new charges. 
 
 "Those investigators have reviewed the committee's full report and did not find any new information that they had not previously considered in reaching their determination," the official said. 
 
 Update at 11:25 a.m. ET. CIA Rejects Conclusions: 
 
 In a statement, Director John Brennan admitted to some "shortcomings" and said the CIA had implemented some "remedial measures." 
 
 He said that while the CIA agrees with some of the committee's findings, it diverges with the committee's two main findings: The CIA says the program was effective and it did not mislead other parts of the government about its enhanced interrogations. 
 
 "Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," Brennan said. "The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qaida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day." 
 
 Update at 11:22 a.m. ET. Techniques: 
 
 The report itself does not conclude whether these techniques were legal. The report also doesn't use the word torture. But here are some of the techniques described. Fair warning — some are disturbing: 
 
 — At a site called COBALT, CIA officers strayed from the techniques approved by the White House. In November 2002, a detainee died from hypothermia after he was held "partially nude and chained to a concrete floor." 
 
 — Some detainees were kept awake for up to 180 hours, "usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads." 
 
 — The CIA told several detainees that they would not leave custody alive. One was told he would only leave in a "coffin-shaped box." 
 
 — Some naked detainees were "hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped and punched." 
 
 — The CIA may have waterboarded more than the three detainees it said it waterboarded. 
 
 — "At least five CIA detainees were subjected to 'rectal feeding' or 'rectal hydration' without documented medical need," Feinstein's office says. We're not sure what that means. 
 
 Update at 11:18 a.m. ET. A Summary: 
 
 From a summary of the report provided by Feinstein's office, there are two main takeaways of the report: 
 
 — In many cases, the CIA misrepresented the efficacy and the techniques used on detainees. This line from Feinstein's office sums it up: "The CIA provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, the CIA inspector general, the media and the American public." 
 
 — These interrogation techniques were not effective. The CIA, the report concludes, misled the rest of the government — including the president — on the efficacy of the program. 
 
 The Senate committee reviewed 20 cases the CIA held up as its most prominent successes. The committee found that in all of those cases, either the information attained had nothing to do with the success or it was acquired from the detainee before the harsh techniques were applied or the information was "already available to the intelligence communities from other sources." 
 
 Update at 8:53 a.m. ET. Some Remedial Reading: 
 
 We're expecting the Senate to issue its report around 11 a.m. ET. That gives you some time for some remedial reading. Here's what we recommend: 
 
 — "CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says" (Washington Post): This is a report based on interviews with officials who have read the "torture report." According to the Post, the CIA misled the Bush administration and Congress on the extent and success of the interrogation techniques. 
 
 Here's a key quote: "The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives," one U.S. official briefed on the report told the Post. "Was that actually true? The answer is no." 
 
 — "Bush and C.I.A. Ex-Officials Rebut Torture Report" (New York Times): Before the report's release, the Bush administration is staking out a position. Mostly, it appears they will not take the opportunity offered by the report to distance itself from the CIA. 
 
 In an interview with CNN, President George Bush made that clear: "We're fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the C.I.A. serving on our behalf," he said. "These are patriots and whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off base." 
 
 — Sen. Feinstein Accuses CIA of Searching Congressional Computers (C-Span): Arguably the climax of this whole thing came back in March, when Feinstein delivered a more than 30-minute speech on the floor of the Senate. 
 
 In it, she accused the CIA of trying to thwart her committee's work by deleting files and spying on their computers. 
 
 Update at 8:23 a.m. ET. What We'll Be Looking For: 
 
 The Senate torture report is set up as a series of case studies, looking at how dozens of detainees were treated by the United States. As we sift through the report, we'll be focused on answering five questions: 
 
 — Did these interrogation methods yield any useful intelligence? 
 
 — Was it torture? 
 
 — Was anyone held accountable? 
 
 — Are interrogation methods that went beyond the methods approved by Bush administration lawyers described? 
 
 — Did the CIA mislead the Bush administration about the extent or severity of the methods used?
– CIA Director John Brennan offered up a spirited defense of his agency's torture program today, saying that "our nation and, in particular, this agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country safe and secured" in the aftermath of 9/11, and that most agents "carried out their responsibilities faithfully," obtained "useful and valuable" information, and "did what they were asked to do in the service of our nation." He acknowledged that techniques were used that "had not been authorized, were abhorrent, and rightly should be repudiated by all," notes Politico, and that "we fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes." Speaking at a rare press conference, Brennan took questions, including one about whether more information would be forthcoming, notes CNN. "I think there's been more than enough transparency that's happened over the last couple days. I think it's over the top," responded the nation's top spy. Brennan bashed the "flawed" report for the "unusual" choice of not talking to CIA agents, but said that ultimately many "conclusions are sound and consistent with our own prior findings." The AP notes that Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office began a lively and real-time Twitter fact-check defending the report's accuracy, using #ReadTheReport. Read one: "Brennan: 'unknowable' if we could have gotten the intel other ways. Study shows it IS knowable: CIA had info before torture. #ReadTheReport"