by D. Cupples |
It's like Watergate, but not because tapes are involved. It's that every day, evidence trickles out that more people broke laws or misled the public. Yesterday, a federal judge stood up to the Bush Administration, which wants courts and Congress to bud out of investigations into the CIA's destruction of video tapes of detainee-torture sessions. Five days ago, Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress that he wouldn't share information about the investigation -- despite Congress's right to know.
Originally, officials said that White House lawyers had advised the CIA against destroying the tapes. A recent news report discusses evidence that some White House officials wanted the tapes destroyed. Today's New York Times reports:
"It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.
"One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been 'vigorous sentiment' among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"Some other officials assert that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes. Those officials acknowledged, however, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal. (NY Times)
In other words, the White House may have been more involved in the tapes' destruction than it cares to admit. The New York Times also gives new details about Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA Clandestine Branch chief who has been blamed for ordering the tapes' destruction:
"Officials said that before he issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws....
"Until their destruction, the tapes were stored in a safe in the C.I.A. station in [Cuba].... According to one former senior intelligence official, the tapes were never sent back to C.I.A. headquarters, despite what the official described as concern about keeping such highly classified material overseas." (NY Times)
I can't wait to see what evidence is unearthed over the coming weeks. Marty Lederman commented:
"A slew of people evidently advised the CIA that it would be unwise or even illegal to destroy the tapes. Thereafter, most or all of those officials, in the CIA, in the White House, in Congress, etc., eventually found out that the CIA did destroy the tapes -- and not a single one of them did a thing about it. Why not? Well, perhaps it's because this entire group finally issued a collective sigh of relief that, finally, the CIA had failed to heed their 'advice.'"
Memeorandum has other bloggers' reactions.
Related BN-Politics Posts:
* Mukasey's Bizarre Reason for Refusing to Share Info w/Congress
* Bush Demands Freedom to Torture, Retired Generals Disagree
* CIA Lawyers Authorized Destruction of Tapes? The Plot Thickens
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