McCain Stands By His CIA Report Support

Even with all of the political push back he has received, and only days after the politically driven, Senate Democrat CIA report on interrogation tactics was released, Republican Senator John McCain, who came out in support of the report and denounced the CIA’s alleged actions, defended his words by saying that he did what he felt was right.

I ran into Senator McCain this week on Capitol Hill, where we asked him about the backlash he, the President, and other Democrat Senators have received for supporting the release and findings of the report.

McCain said that detractors were “entitled to their views,” and that he “certainly expected” to receive pushback for his actions.

You have to do what’s right. I’ve learned in my political career, on a occasions where I didn’t do what I believed was right, I paid a very heavy price for it.-Sen. John McCain

Regarding Vice President Dick Cheney’s assessment that the report was “full of crap,” McCain said that he was “not surprised with his comments,” adding that he once debated Cheney on this topic years ago at a Republican Senate luncheon, when the Senate was mulling over the Detainee Treatment Act that prohibited these interrogation tactics.

The CIA report has be rebuked by Republicans and some Democrats as being one-sided, leading to former CIA Director John Brennan to come out publicly to debunk the notion that nothing was gained from “advanced interrogation techniques.”