Plot
In early 2009, having just spent two years investigating the 2005 destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, [5] Daniel J. Jones, a Senate staffer, is selected by Senator Dianne Feinstein to lead a review of six million pages of CIA materials related to the Agency's use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). Jones and his small team of six get to work in a sensitive compartmented information facility at a covert CIA site in Virginia.
As Jones begins his work, the narrative shifts back to the September 11 attacks of 2001, with CIA employees at the Counterterrorist Center (CTC), including Bernadette and Gretchen, anxiously watching live videos of the attacks. At CIA headquarters a few days later, DCI George Tenet reports on his meeting at Camp David with President George W. Bush and CTC director Cofer Black. John Rizzo, the CIA's legal counsel, reports that the President has given the CIA powers to "capture and detain suspected terrorists." The next year, intelligence psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Elmer Mitchell are contracted to instruct the CIA in EITs.
Although he loses half of his team after the Department of Justice (DOJ) begins its own investigation of the CIA and the CIA decides to only allow its personnel to speak to the DOJ, Jones continues his investigation with his remaining staff: April and Julian. Jones meets with FBI agent Ali Soufan and learns more about the CIA's interrogation program, particularly regarding Abu Zubaydah. The interrogation of Abu Zubaydah is shown, contrasting the FBI's use of rapport-building with the CIA's use of EITs. Bernadette observes the sessions, and she defends the use of the new techniques. Soufan says he gathered crucial intelligence from Zubaydah before the CIA took over the interrogations, [6] [7] [8] though the CIA disagrees on what techniques are most effective and what results came from what approach. [9]
At a briefing with Senator Feinstein in her office, Jones describes evidence from the CIA's own records that prove the Agency knew Zubaydah was not a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda, as they falsely reported to the DOJ. After the CIA told the Bush administration that Zubaydah was a key player, they received authorization in the August 2002 CIA "Torture Memos" drafted by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo to use EITs on him, making Zubaydah the first detainee to be tortured. [10]
Raymond Nathan, a physician assistant with the Office of Medical Services who works at a CIA black site, secretly meets with Jones, saying he and other medical professionals had complained that the EITs were torture, but the only response they received was a cable from Director Jose Rodriguez telling them to stop putting their objections in writing. Nathan witnessed the waterboarding of Zubaydah, who lost consciousness and almost drowned during the procedure.
April and Jones uncover the story of Gul Rahman, who died from hypothermia in 2002 after CIA interrogators threw water on him and left him chained to the ground overnight in a 36 °F (2 °C) cell. Jones meets with Senator Feinstein and her staffer Marcy Morris to inform them about the CIA Inspector General's report of the incident. Jones also deduces that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had been told to not inform the President about the Torture Memos, which President Bush only learned about in April 2006.
Among the files provided to him by the CIA, Jones finds the Panetta Review, a harshly critical internal CIA review of the EIT program that was prepared in 2009 but never shared. [Notes 1] While watching TV at a bar after work, April, Julian, and Jones become discouraged as they watch a pundit on the news claim that EITs had yielded good intelligence and prevented terrorist attacks. Jones stays up all night to disprove the claims, and the CIA's own records show that crucial information it is claiming to have obtained by subjecting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (aka "KSM") to torture was obtained by other means.
Seen in flashback, Mitchell and Jessen waterboard KSM in March 2003. Mitchell complains that, when waterboarded, Muhammad makes up lies to make it stop. Bernadette, who has been observing from another room, questions the contractors about the effectiveness of their techniques, but the torture continues.
The DOJ concludes its investigation of the CIA, and files no charges. April accepts another job offer and leaves Jones' team.
In April 2004, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal hits the news, which is particularly embarrassing, as President Bush had recently denounced the use of torture in an address to the United Nations. [11] Jack Goldsmith, the OLC's new head, repudiates and withdraws the Torture Memos. Tenet, Rodriguez, Rizzo, Thomas Eastman, Bernadette, Mitchell, and Jessen meet to discuss how to respond. Mitchell gives an impassioned speech in defense of his methods, and Rodriguez has the program re-certified.
Jones and Julian finish the 6,200-page report, and it is approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Feinstein, on December 13, 2012, and sent to the CIA for final comments. Two months later, John Brennan is sworn in as the new Director of the CIA. Brennan tells Jones and Senator Feinstein that he disagrees with many parts of the report and will not allow it to be published without modification, so Jones has a series of meetings with CIA representatives, who raise several objections to key findings in the report, such as that no unique intel was obtained by using EITs, or the fact that Mitchell and Jessen were unqualified to be offering advice on interrogation techniques, but were nevertheless paid $81 million of taxpayer money for their efforts. Senator Feinstein listens to Jones' defense of his report after these meetings and eventually tells him to stop going to them.
Frustrated, Jones reveals some of the contents of the Panetta Review to Senator Mark Udall of the Intelligence Committee. Senator Udall confronts Caroline Krass during a December 17, 2013, Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Krass' nomination to the position of CIA General Counsel, stating that he "is "more confident than ever of the accuracy of the committee's 6,300 page study." He then reveals the existence of the Panetta Review by saying that the Intelligence Committee's report is consistent with the CIA's own study of the EIT program initiated by former-Director Leon Panetta, while both reports conflict with the CIA's official response to the Senate report. [12] Meanwhile, Jones, who is fearful that the CIA will attempt to destroy all copies of the Panetta Review, like they destroyed the interrogation videotapes, secretly moves a copy of a portion of the review into a safe in his office in the Senate Hart Building.
The CIA, humiliated by Udall's revelation, conducts a search of Jones' workspace, violating of the agreement between the Senate and the CIA. They threaten to prosecute Jones for "stealing" the Panetta Review from the CIA's computers, and Jones' lawyer, Cyrus Clifford, advises him that he does not have a legal problem, but a "sunlight"—that is, transparency—problem. [13] Jones meets with the New York Times national security reporter and suggests he look into the hacking of Senate computers by the CIA, careful to provide no specific details. When the Times article is published, Jones is called into a meeting with Morris and Senator Feinstein, who is visibly angry with him, but ultimately makes a speech supporting him and formally accusing the CIA of unlawfully searching the Senate's computers in violation of the separation of powers. Brennan and the CIA are forced to back down, and the charges against Jones are dropped.
Senator Feinstein tells Jones that she is prepared to release a shorter summary of the report, but President Barack Obama grants the CIA broad authority to redact it first. Jones points out that the CIA's proposed heavy redactions make many of the revelations detailed in the summary impossible to follow, but the Agency claims that even the pseudonyms used could endanger the lives of its agents. In the face of unrelenting efforts to block the release of the summary, Jones again meets with the New York Times reporter, but ultimately decides not to leak the report to the media. [14]
The Republican Party wins control of the Senate in the November 2014 midterm elections, meaning the report will likely be buried forever when the new Congress is sworn in January 2015. Faced with this deadline, the Senate finally agrees to release the summary of the report. Senator Feinstein gives a speech summarizing the report and its implications, and then Senator John McCain, who was tortured by his captors as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, gives an impassioned speech in support of the report.
An epilogue, delivered through a series of intertitles, explains that Jones left his job as a Senate staffer after the summary of the report was released. It is also noted that no CIA officers were ever criminally charged in connection with the actions outlined in the report, that many were in fact promoted, and that one (an allusion to Gina Haspel) later became director of the Agency.
Production
The film was announced in April 2018, with Scott Z. Burns directing and writing, and Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, and Jennifer Morrison signed on to star. [15] [16]
When asked by PBS NewsHour 's Jeffrey Brown about his motivation for making a film inspired by the controversial 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, Burns replied that both of his parents are psychologists, and he found it "appalling" to learn from the report [17] that "people had figured out a way to weaponize psychology", a profession that "exists to help people". [18] Burns further said that he and producer Steven Soderbergh felt it reflected well on the United States that the government allowed the summary of the report to be published. In the same interview, Soderbergh said he did not know "that there's another country, other than maybe Canada or the U.K.", that "would have even allowed this kind of investigation." [18]
Some of the characters that appear in the film are composite characters, such as Bernadette, who bears some resemblance to Gina Haspel. Haspel oversaw the CIA black site in Thailand where Abu Zubaydah was tortured, and later managed to push her bosses to destroy the tapes of the torture. According to the CIA, Haspel was not, however, in charge of the site during Zubaydah's interrogation. [19]
Production began on April 16, 2018, in New York. [20] Tim Blake Nelson, Ben McKenzie, Matthew Rhys, Ted Levine, and Michael C. Hall were added to the cast the following month, [21] and Maura Tierney joined the cast in June. [22] The film's 50-day shooting schedule and $18 million budget were cut to 26 days and $8 million. [1]
