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Witch Hunt: Mukasey Orders Criminal Probe Over CIA Tapes
Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed an outside prosecutor Wednesday to lead a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes.
“The Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation,” Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.
Mukasey named John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the case. Durham has a reputation as one of the nation’s most relentless prosecutors. He served as an outside prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the FBI’s use of mob informants in Boston and helped send several Connecticut public officials to prison.
What this entire episode represents is yet another example of the CIA’s inability to keep a secret. The concept of “State Secrets” obviously died along with the cold war.
The decision to tape any interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects especially any enhanced interrogations was probably the most horrible idea ever conceived. A tape like that is the equivalent of a loose nuke in political terms and should never have been made.
Now of course this whole thing is going to play out like a textbook, and someone is gonna have to be thrown under the bus. I suspect the sacrificial lamb at the CIA already knows who he or she is and is just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Mukasey has to prove to Congress that he’s running a different kind of Justice Department than Gonzales, so he’s obligated to hang someone out to dry.
The larger and more troubling question than anything goes back to the intelligence community’s inability to keep a secret. Leaking State Secrets has become business as usual and the leaker or leakers are never caught and never prosecuted.
I don’t care if the CIA destroyed one tape or a thousand tapes, or if they torture terrorists, or if they send terrorists to be tortured by someone else. What I do care about is why I know about any of it?
Contrary to what the NY Times thinks, I don’t need to know about NSA wiretapping, tape destruction, waterboarding, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, torture, or any of the rest of it.
I want the CIA to do whatever they deem necessary to prevent any future attacks. I don’t care how they do it, or where they do it as long as it gets done.
We should not know as much as we do, because everything we now know our enemies now know. If leakers were sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, I’m betting the vast majority of leaks would dry up overnight.
Who in the hell is ever gonna want to join the CIA or NSA, DIA, if they run the risk of being prosecuted for doing their job if a political scapegoat is needed?
Americans need to decide if gathering intelligence and conducting clandestine operations is something that’s important to our National Security. If we don’t believe intelligence is important then let’s just close down the CIA and other agencies.
If we do think that gathering intelligence is indeed vital to our national security, then we should just shut-up and let the CIA do their job. That means not asking how information was obtained, where it was obtained, or under what conditions.
Playing “gotcha” with America’s most important intelligence agency during a time of war is despicable, disgraceful, and outrageous.
Judge Appears Reluctant To Investigate Destruction of CIA Tapes
Much to the bitter disappointment of left-wing types, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy appeared reluctant today to open his own investigation into the destruction of interrogation tapes by the CIA.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy heard arguments from both sides on whether he should hold a hearing on the CIA’s controversial destruction of the videotapes in November 2005, five months after he had issued an order specifically ordering the government to preserve “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now” at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Lawyer Joseph “Jody” Hunt, representing the White House, told the judge that Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not being held at Guantanamo when the judge issued his order, noting that President Bush announced their transfer to the facility in September 2006. He also said the tapes destroyed by the CIA had no bearing on the case of the Yemeni men because, “It is inconceivable that the destroyed tapes could have been about abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”
And Hunt asked the judge to refrain from conducting his own investigation because the Justice Department and CIA inspector general are already looking into the controversy, including whether the government violated any court orders to preserve evidence. He said that the Justice Department and the administration would notify the judge if the inquiry concludes that the court order was violated.
Judge Kennedy did not say when he would officially rule on these issues, but observers believe he will ultimately allow the Justice Department to conduct their own investigations without interfering.
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