Three U.S. Senators urge CIA chief to apologize for Senate spying

Three U.S. Democratic Senators on Friday asked CIA Director John Brennan to acknowledge that the agency improperly accessed congressional records and urged him to offer an apology for the agency's action.

U.S. Senators; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii sent Brennan a letter calling on him to pledge that it will not happen again. All three are members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"It is vitally important for the American public to have confidence that senior intelligence officials respect US laws and the Constitution, including our democratic system of checks and balances," the letter read. "In our judgment your handling of this matter has undermined that confidence.

"We call on you to acknowledge that this search was improper, and commit that these unacceptable actions will not be repeated." the letter read.

In March 2014, then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of penetrating the network during the Senate investigation into the CIA's brutal treatment of al-Qaida detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Feinstein and others described this as an apparent violation of the US Constitution's separation between the legislative and executive arms of government.

In July of 2014, the agency admitted "some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet." Brennan privately apologized to Senate committee leaders, though he has not made an overt and public commitment to preventing the incident from ever happening again.