A Prime Legacy for Feinstein: The Torture Report on Terrorism Suspects

One of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s prime legacies will be her unflinching investigation into the torture of terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks, and her dogged insistence on making the findings public in order to force a reckoning over what she considered a dark chapter in the nation’s history.

Her quest for accountability pitted her against two presidents of different parties: George W. Bush, whose administration deployed what were euphemistically called enhanced interrogation techniques, and Barack Obama, whose administration resisted the release of the full investigation report for fear of exposing Americans to retaliation from extremists.

While she struggled with the decision, Ms. Feinstein ultimately overcame objections from the White House, the C.I.A. and others, and released in 2014 a 524-page executive summary of the 6,000-page volume produced by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which she chaired.

The report documented a host of brutal practices used against detainees, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and medically unnecessary “rectal hydration,” while disputing claims that the torture yielded intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks.

“Nobody wants to do something that is going to bring on any kind of attack,” Ms. Feinstein told reporters after describing the report on the Senate floor. “But I came to the conclusion that America’s greatness is being able to say we made a mistake, and we are going to correct it and go from there.”

The struggle over the investigation was made into a 2019 movie called “The Report,” starring Adam Driver as an idealistic staff member and Annette Bening as Ms. Feinstein. “I was honored to play her,” Ms. Bening told Entertainment Weekly on Friday.