Director Panetta proposed an alternative arrangement, to provide literally millions of pages of operational cables, internal emails, memos and other documents pursuant to a committee's document request at a secure location in northern Virginia. We agreed, but insisted on several conditions and protections to ensure the integrity of this congressional investigation.

then-Director Panetta and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a, quote, stand-alone computer system, end quote, with a, quote, network drive segregated from CIA networks, end quote, for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA who would, quote, not be permitted to share information from the system with other CIA personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee, end quote.

It was this computer network that notwithstanding our agreement with Director Panetta was searched by the CIA this past January -- and once before, which I will later describe.

The CIA insisted on reviewing every document before it went to the network to be reviewed by the Committee. The CIA provided them in a document dump. In all, more than 6.2 million documents were provided:

The documents that were provided came without any index, without any organizational structure. It was a true document dump that our committee staff had to go through and make sense of.

So they had the CIA provide a search tool. And then, in 2010, documents disappeared. They accused the CIA who said the removal was authorized by the White House, which the White House denied.

Then there was the Panetta Review of the documents provided. It conflicts with the CIA's response to the 6,300 page report the Committee submitted on the interrogation program and to which the CIA responded.

The internal Panetta review summary, now at the secure committee office in Hart, is an especially significant document as it corroborates critical information in the -- in the committee's 6,300- page study, that the CIA's official response either objects to, denies, minimizes or ignores.

Unlike the official response, these Panetta review documents were in agreement with the committee's findings.

The Committee, of course, noted the discrepancy between the Panetta Review and the CIA's response to its report.

the committee staff securely transported a printed portion of the draft internal Panetta review from the committee's secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate office building.

The Panetta Review then disappeared from the Committee's computer system.

on January 15th, 2014, CIA Director Brennan requested an emergency meeting to inform me and Vice Chairman Chambliss that without prior notification or approval, CIA personnel had conducted a search -- that was John Brennan's word -- of the committee computers at the off-site facility.

This search involved not only a search of documents provided by the committee by the CIA, but also a search of the standalone and walled-off committee network drive containing the committee's own internal work product and communications.

According to what Feinstein says she was told by Brennan:

Director Brennan stated that the CIA search had determined that the committee staff had copies of the internal Panetta review on the committee staff shared drive and had accessed them numerous times. He indicated at the meeting that he was going to order further forensic investigation of the committee network to loan -- to learn more about activities of the committee's oversight staff.

Feinstein said after her meeting with Brennan, CIA inspector general, David Buckley referred the CIA's unauthorized search to DOJ for criminal investigation.

I have been informed that Mr. Buckley has referred the matter to the Department of Justice, given the possibility of a criminal violation by CIA personnel.

Then she was told that the CIA's counsel had filed a crime report with DOJ alleging the Committee violated the law, which Feinstein emphatically denies.

our staff involved in this matter have the appropriate clearances, handled this sensitive material according to established procedures and practice to protect classified information, and were provided access to the Panetta Review by the CIA itself.

As a result, there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime.

Feinstein says the crime report by the CIA counsel is an intimidation tactic.

She also says the CIA counsel who made the report was the chief counsel for the CIA's counterterrorism center (which operated the interrogation program) from 2004 until it ended in 2008.

As to the Committee's report:

I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification as release to the American people. The White House has indicated publicly and to me personally that it supports declassification and release.