WASHINGTON: The CIA lawyer accused by the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee of trying to intimidate the panel over its probe of the agency’s secret prisons and harsh interrogations of terror suspects was himself involved in the controversial programs. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the attorney was cited by name more than 1,600 times in the committee’s unpublished report.

Feinstein said CIA may have broken the law when it searched her panel’s computers to find out how staff obtained an internal agency review of the US interrogation program of suspected terrorists.

The internal review was more critical than the official CIA report on the controversial program, which was put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“It’s troubling to see this, but I do have immense respect for Sen. Feinstein, so if she’s going down to the floor, she clearly believes something untoward happened,” Representative Mike Rogers, who heads the intelligence panel in the House of Representatives, said in an interview with CNN.

Rogers, a Republican, said that Feinstein’s charges needed to be investigated to ensure the CIA did not break any laws.

“That would be a pretty horrific situation and would destroy that legislative-CIA relationship,” he said.

John Brennan, who has been CIA director for a year, quickly denied Feinstein’s accusation on Tuesday.

Feinstein also said the CIA had tried to intimidate her committee’s staff by complaining about its investigation to the Justice Department, a tactic that Rogers said was troubling.

“I think that was a horrible decision,” Rogers said. “So we need to unwind this, get tensions down, and find out what the facts are so we can get this behind us.