White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to weigh in Tuesday on the accuracy of allegations that the CIA may have illegally spied on Senate staff members, but he said that the president has “great confidence” in the CIA director and agrees with his call to “get to the bottom” of the claim if inappropriate activity occurred.
“You saw the CIA director say today that if there was any inappropriate activity by CIA or by [Senate Intelligence Committee] staff, he would of course want to get to the bottom of it and certainly the president would agree with that,” Carney told reporters.
Carney added that the White House supports declassification of the Senate panel's findings on enhanced interrogation techniques. He said the White House takes Senate Intelligence Committee chief Dianne Feinstein's allegations "very seriously."
Feinstein said earlier Tuesday that the CIA searched Senate computers and may have violated the Constitution by doing so.
Brennan told Andrea Mitchell that Feinstein's claim is "beyond the scope of reason."
The CIA inspector general is investigating and has referred the matter to the Department of Justice.