tapes Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Justice Dept. opens investigation into CIA tapes

I haven’t spent much time discussing the CIA destroying the tapes of their interrogations of two Al Qaeda suspects. I figured that this would fit in with all the rest of the scandals. The surprising development today. First, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, cochairman of the 9/11 commission, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times today entitled Stonewalled by the CIA. Their second paragraph gets to the meat of the matter —

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey has opened a formal criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. Although this seemed to be a no-brainer today outside observer, the attorney general seem to resist this notion four to six weeks ago.

Many of the blogs have been all over this. Crooks and Liars have been following this story along with TPM Muckraker. TPM Muckraker has a fabulous timeline.

Update: Jonathan Turley was on Countdown (in the video), here’s a portion of what he said, “There‘s at least six that made compelling—there‘s a compelling basis for at least six. You‘ve got obstruction of congress, obstruction of justice, you have perjury, conspiracy, I think, a spoliation. There‘s also a chance you might have false statements, so the list gets longer. But the original one is torture. You know, many people in Congress and in the White House and at the Justice Department are framing this as an obstruction investigation, as if what‘s on those tapes is an episode of Barney. What‘s on those tapes is the original crime in the scandal. And that‘s the crime of torturing people. It is still, even after the last seven years, a crime to torture suspects.” (more…)

Countdown – CIA destroyed tapes

The White House behind pit bull, Dana Perino went on the offense today. They attacked the New York Times for ~~not printing the truth~~, ~~misstating the facts~~ possibly over reaching with a subtitle. Yep, Dana wanted the Times to correct this problem. Not the facts in the story. It seems those were right. The fact that the White House didn’t acknowledge that at least 2 other White House lawyers advised the CIA not to destroy the tapes didn’t seem to phase Dana Perino. The fact that again the White House hasn’t been straight with the American people didn’t get Perino’s goat. A sub title that was the problem of the wicked New York Times.

TCR has more. I, of course, have the video below.

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From NYT:

The Central Intelligence Agency has agreed to make documents related to the destruction of interrogation videotapes available to the House Intelligence Committee and to allow the agency’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, to testify about the matter, Congressional and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

But it remained unclear whether Jose A. Rodriguez, who as chief of the agency’s clandestine service ordered the tapes destroyed in 2005, would testify. Officials said Mr. Rodriguez’s appearance before the committee might involve complex negotiations over legal immunity at a time when the Justice Department and the intelligence agency were reviewing whether the destruction of the tapes broke any laws. (more…)