Sometime in 2010, according to Feinstein, the staffers working within the CIA safe room came across what is now called the “Panetta report.” It was a summary of most of the important documents provided by the CIA to the Senate, with added commentary and analysis as to the importance of the information – prepared for then-Director of the CIA Leon Panetta.
How the staffers found this paper is at the heart of the current dispute. Anonymous administration sources have alleged that the staffers may have discovered it by breaching a firewall separating their computer system from the CIA’s own networks, or otherwise hacking into a place they weren’t authorized to go. Feinstein on Tuesday denied this in strenuous terms. She said the searching tool provided by the CIA produced the Panetta report after certain parameters were entered.
