Techniques like water boarding. Also slamming detainees into walls, sleep deep elevation, dousing them with cold water, even alleging threaten one with a buzzing power drill. It was not used in that case. Prosecute bush who authorized the program insisted it saved u. S. Lives and Vice President dick cheney telling the new york time it was, quote, absolutely totally justified. He said when we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from anymore mass casualty attack which was our objective. He suggested that the cia mislead the white house is just a, quote, crock. Joining me now is Loretta Sanchez. Congresswoman, thank you for being with me today. Youve been aware of the discussions ahead of time. The concern of perhaps new violence that will be triggered by the release of this report. What is your thought . Should it be released and why now . Absolutely. We need to have transparency. The American People need to understand what the American Government is doing. My husband was the senior prosecutor at guantanamo and he and his team refused to use any of this information gathered by torture because they thought it was unreliable. I remember him telling me they could get more by giving a prisoner mcdonalds happy meal than on the reliability of this torture related information. What criticisms have been made about the release and i shared some with you. The former Vice President dick cheney. I would like to share the response from former Bush White HouseCommunications DirectorNicole Wallace and what she said earlier on morning joe. Months after 9 11, there were three people who we thought knew about imminent attacks, and we did whatever we had to do. I pray to god until the we do whatever we have to do. And the notion it somehow makes america less great is asinine and dangerous. Does it make america less great . Well, america has its value systems and people and other people from around the country look at it really as the shining light of democracy of human rights, et. Cetera. So of course weve seen over time that image is tarnished because of the things that happened included this torture by the cia. I want to remind you that this was done by the cia our military did not do this. They used the normal military techniques that they knew for interrogation. They were not schooled in the types of things that this report will talk about. And this report focussing on cia techniques and what lthey have used. Standby, i would like to bring in our senior White House Correspondent chris jansing. You got your hands on an exclusive statement from the president. This is an advanced copy of the statement that the white house will release. Its the president s reaction to it. Let me real you a relevant portion. He said the report contains a documents a troubling program. He says that it reinforces his long held view that the harsh methods are not only inconsistent with our vaus as a nation. They did not serve our broader Counter Terrorism efforts or National Security interests. He said they did significant damage to americas standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with our allies and partners and he said hell continue to use his authority as president to make sure that these kinds of measures are never taken again. These are strongly worded comments consistent with what weve heard from the president from the second day of his administration outlawed the kind of techniques that are outlined in the report that is going to be released later today. I can also tell you, richard, Top White House officials have been huddled in meetings throughout the day. Theyre going do a briefing later on about reaction to specific parts of this report, and preparing for the release of it including the president s chief of staff Dennis Mcdonough and his Top Communications official. Again, more than a full page Statement Released from the white house will be officially released with the release of this report. Nbcs senior White House Correspondent, thank you. The latest statement from the president. Back to congresswoman sanchez. You heard what the response will be from the president based on what chris told us. Part of this response is also came yesterday from the White House Press secretary josh ernst. He refused to say whether the techniques that had been described that will be critiqued here in the report coming from the senate he refused to say that the harsh interrogations lead to finding bin laden. I want share what he said yesterday and ill get your response. Youre asking a difficult question there are varieties of views on. The president s views wherever you come down on the equation of, yes, it yielded information that was helpful. It yielded information it was crucial, or no, it didnt yield any helpful information. The president believes regardless what the answer to the question is, that the use of these techniques was not worth it. Because of the harm that was done to our National Values and the sense of what it is that we believe in as americans. He say rodriguez wrote a fifth about the techniques supporting the use of it. He he said it dead d le did ld to perhaps some of the outcomes they desired. They laid out the objectives in the beginning. What, if in the end, this did lead to the capture of individuals like ksm . It would be interesting to see the report from feinsteins committee. The Intelligence Committee from the senate side. They certainly took a long time. Its just an executive summary of some of the techniques. Many of us in the Congress Know for awhile that using the type of torture does not real actionable intelligence. In fact, it gives you bad information. People will do anything sometimes to stay alive. Its not the right information. And many of us here who have studied this, who have followed this understand that. And so it really is important for the American People to understand and this report will give us some glimpse of the fact that torture really doesnt work. And more importantly, it puts our military and our Embassy Mission folks who are in other countries who get taken captive at a higher risk that they will be tortured than because we have done the same thing. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of new york. Thank you so much for your time today. Of california. California. Im sorry. Im from california i should have remembered that. Lets bring in our newsnation panel today in new york not california. Good day to you. Richard, i want to start with you. You know, how real are these concerns that have been voiced about more violence that u. S. Embassies and u. S. Interests abroad . Its possible. I think critics of the report the release of the report are probably drumming it little bit. Its possible you could have some people, extremists in cairo who are looking for any excuse to throw stones at the embassy to use it as a pretext. I dont think its going to change al qaedas view on the United States or drive people into terrorism. Its one more arrow in their already quite full quiver of anger. Yeah. How does it register . Were talking about it quite steadily here for the last several days. How does it register with these groups if at all . The idea its going to be some truth and reconciliation process. That the people of the world will see this process and feel they have been given the truth and reconcile is probably not the case. If youre a young man living in nigeria or indonesia and you read this report, or your newspaper accounts of the report, you wont see look at the u. S. Coming clean. Youll see look at the u. S. What terrible brutality they did to muslims. We expect to hear from Diane Feinstein, the senator from california, who is the chairwoman within the next five or six minutes. Were getting ready for that release and what she will be saying shortly. Evan, you monitor weve talked about this throughout the years what is happening in the digital sphere, if you will. You often will get some measure or understanding of how these stories are being reacted to. Any reaction so far . No. I think the reaction we can expect to see is that, sure, al qaeda will put this in the pr propagan propaganda. I think particularly al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which was founded, primarily Guantanamo Bay individuals. Im sure theyll make some reference to this. One thing about this particular is that we dont see here any visual images like we had. Those visual images carried the day. I think those propelled people forward even people that werent naunsed in the world of al qaeda or isis or whatnot. What that we have some advantage. Theres no doubt that al qaeda will use this and i agree with richard. If you read the report, it seems to be many of the conspiracy theories that are talked about the United States they come alive in this kind of material. Unfortunately, theres also the problem that there continues to be the mantra among some that torture produces reliable evidence. And if there is actual evidence that show its not correct its important that the American Public as well as american policy makers are confronted with that evidence. And theyre about to be depending on what comes out. Redactions. You whererote on the issue. Who may or may not have to face the music. Right. Like the identities of people who carried out the abuses and the identities of the abused. Its still classified secret list of all the people who were held inside sites. At one point former cia director said that fewer than 100 people were held. Was it 99 people . The committee, in fact, find it was more than 100 people . Only 14 of the people were ever transferred to guantanamo from the site. The list who was held, what was done to each individual. That remains a discred s s a se. As does the identities of the abusers. Who were the people who operated. Who were cia officers and cia contractors who were involved for years in running sites in thailand, afghanistan, poland, roman romania. Well know names that are familiar to people, the three cia directors in charge while the programs were operating. Two of their deputies will probably be named and top people including, as you say, Jose Rodriguez. Richard, when we think of this, some of the details that may come out about the operation s that existed what sort of fallout might our allies. The countries that worked with us. The countries where the they existed in. Where might that be . I think that i dont think this is about changing the opinion of the already theyre upset and there are cases raised about it. I think its about changing the narrative of american history. This process was a brutal process. Whether it was legal or not i think is highly debatable. It was legal at the time. The cia was asked to do it. The cia was passing on the intelligence to the president. Everyone knew what was going on including by the senate who is pretending to be a baseball in the babe in the woods. They knew what was going on. I think its rewriting the narrative of history. How will we remember the period . Will we remember the period which the rogue evil cia who was beating people in some cases to death and politicians didnt know about it or the politicians were plenty aware of this. The cia beat people to death and the senate tried to come out and say, well, you know, we didnt know anything about it. And trying to wash their hands of the situation. To be honest, i think its a little bit of the latter. I want to jump in on the legality point, too. It was authorized. It wasnt tested in u. S. Courts. In fact, the reason that the black Sites Program was closed in september of 2006 was president bush at the time moved 14 people to guantanamo and the rest were basically released. Some handed over to proxy detention in other countries. Its because the Supreme Court said you cannot hold people extralegally like this. They must fall under the Geneva Convention. It was authorized and richard said lots of people knew what was going on. Congress was well briefed. I think hes right. I think none of the things were tested in u. S. Courts. I think thats a big question about the legality. Should they have been legal . You have a law that says the Geneva Convention should be suspended . No. They didnt hold them. But they were authorized. A lot of discussion right now is whether or not these tactics resulted in useful information. The question really that should be answered is were there any other available means to get that information short of what we did . And i think thats the more fundamental question. Thats what were looking for in the report. Is there evidence of that . And that will i think, answer whether or not in the future using these tactics or techniques can ever be permitted or permissible or legal. Again, were waiting for Diane Feinstein shortly on the senate floor to release her comments on this 6700 page report. Her reaction, her summary of it, and we did receive some early commentary about what she believe believes based on information she got. It was just released and to your point, evan, of the four points that she makes in this release, one of them is that in no time did the cia course of interrogation technique lead to the imminent threat intelligence. Thats what shes saying that, no, nothing came of it. Cia disputes that. And we will get a 100page rebuttal to that. That is her view of the report. Yeah. But, look, we have to be careful youre not to trash the cia. The cia was acting as a fujs of the executive. It was doing what was told to do. The folks were trying to stop terrorists. Again, i think we have to consider what the cia has to say here. They were more i think closer than anybody else. If they really believe there is evidence that shows that torture or torturelike techniques lead to evidence stopping actual terrorist attacks, it might be the right time right now to declassify some information and provide that information to the American Public. In absence of that, its just very difficult to argue in the opposite. Could it inspire lone wolfes the information getting out there . The headlines that will be read across the world. It doesnt help. I dont think its going to be enough because it doesnt have the emotional impact of images. They talk about were trying to come clean to the American People. Its a 600page report. If you look at the lone wolfes theyre not the kind of people who necessarily that pore through that. Written by lawyers redactions. It doesnt have that kind of emotional impact. It doesnt help. It will reinforce a mentality that some extremists have. Its more about settling scores between the Intelligence Committee and the cia. Notice its just really the cia that is being taken to task here. And your previous guest said that the military didnt do any abusive things. Thats separate. Thats wrong, by the way,. The military did things. Also, why arent any of the politicians if youre going go for a full accountability, why not go for the president . He was getting this intelligence every day. What about condi . Theres some political scores being settled here between the committee feinsteins committee and the agency. One of our colleagues is getting a good glimpse of the report just released. And breaking down some of the details inside of it. Ayman, what are you looking at . Were get iting some information. In is coming from a background briefing that was held earlier this morning. The report itself just gone up live expected to go up live momentarily once senator feinstein appears on the floor there. There are interesting points made from the background briefing including particularly questions related to whether or not president bush, at the time, knew of the enhanced interrogation techniques. In one reference there is a note here says that the cia proposed briefing president bush about the enhanced interrogation as far as 2002. Were told the president would not be getting the briefing in the context of that and report does not make clear where in the cia who at the cia decided that the president not be briefed at the point. There are some other issues particularly coming down and this is one of the points we are doesing earlier about operational security. There are no names mentioned in the report. Why didnt the cia officials name why werent they named in the report . And during that briefing, the information that were getting now said that at the time attorney general holder launched a criminal investigation in 2009 expanding on the probe into the cias destruction of video tapes of interrogations at the time panetta decided that cia officials should not be interviewed because they would not have Legal Protection from potential prosecution. So these are just some of the glimpses were getting now. This was from a Briefing Held earlier today regarding this report, richard. Thank you so much. Ayman mohyeldin looking at the details what might have. Richard, you wanted to Say Something . I think it goes back to your point. There are plenty of cia names in the report. Many names. Some people are named over 100 times. Its just not the name of the actual person who was doing the physical abuse. There was some talk about using pseudonyms. With computer programs that are available, its quite easy even in a long report to extract pseudonyms and compare and contrast when they are used and usually figure out who the person is. The people who arent named the are actual people pouring the buckets of water. A lot of cia officials to the cia top directors they are certainly named. All three, in fact many more than three. Adding more details