Justice, CIA Begin Videotape Inquiry

Inquiry Begins Into Tapes’ Destruction

And surprise:

Man Held by C.I.A. Says He Was Tortured

“While we were provided with very limited information about the existence of the tapes, we were not consulted on their usage nor the decision to destroy the tapes. And, we did not learn until much later, November 2006 — 2 months after the full committee was briefed on the program — that the tapes had in fact been destroyed in 2005.”

Translation: CIA has had no respect whatsoever for Jello Jay and the rest of SSIC because they have exerted no oversight either when Roberts (the public don’t need to know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ controlled them or Jello Jay.)

Last night, the CIA informed me that it believes that the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee was told of the decision to destroy the tapes in February 2003 but was not told of their actual destruction until a closed committee hearing held in November 2006.

If in fact “the leadership” was informed, one Pat Roberts, either multiple people are lying (quite possible) or Roberts had so much respect for his collegues on the SSIC, including the then ranking member, Jello Jay, that he failed to inform any of them.

Given that Miers and DOJ attorneys are on record as being informed on the imminent destruction of said tapes, it is a no-brainer that a White House Counsel with her head screwed on right and not way over her head and DOJ and OLC would have ordered the tapes preserved because their destruction might well be criminal obstruction and could jeapordize a number of terrorism cases.

The attorney who won Hamden v. Rumsfield
Georgetown’s Neal K. Katyal commented that:

Neal K. Katyal on 12/7/07 on (Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

“This looks extremely, extremely damaging for the Administration and the DOJ prosecutors involved. We don’t know when the tapes were destroyed. That’s the first thing we need to find out. We need an investigation to find out–an independent investigation–not an Alberto Gonzaoles trumped up investigation. I’m dismayed that AG Mukasey hasn’t issued a Preservation Order to preserve other tapes and documents because who knows what is being destroyed as we speak”?

…18 USC § 1512 is another reason for an investigation “lying to officials during an investigation.”

18USC §1512

I just don’t have Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief that constitutes poetic faith” to believe that even Miers was dumb enough not to inform Bush.

By the way, DOJ thus far since 911 has an egregious record of prosecuting “terrorism cases”–although many of them are probably malicious/incompetent prosecution products.

My biggest question was whether it was known to Congress in 2003 and 2005 that DOJ had represented to the court (and I think the sworn statement is November 14, 2005, within days of when it is reported that the tapes were destroyed) that they didn’t have videotapes. I know the detainee access was out there, but I wonder about the specific requests for video.

73 – Selise, how could our country be any weaker in international negotiations than we are now? Bush has no international strength – just a shared national and international horror, similar to the feeling you might get when a toddler wanders over and picks up a loaded weapon with the safety off and begins to waft it around.

EW – I’m not sure if I know the exact issues you are asking about or if I would have the answers. For your love of timelines, here’s a pale version of yours that was done for the Moussaoui case:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/facult…..ology.html

But here’s pretty much what happened if I understand correctly. From the very beginning (2003), Moussaoui’s defense lawyers were asking for accesss to detainees and all statements, interrogation results, etc. from them. In particular, the focus was on getting access to the detainees, but they also wanted access to all statements. In connection with that, the judge entered an order requiring that gov turn over all the info and in connection with that ordered that the detainees themselves be made available or requiring Gov to take the death penalty off the table if it would not make detainees available. This was all reported in more or less detail contemporaneously (e.g. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12…..index.html ) with observations at the time about all the redactions of things that everyone knew – there was a findlaw article back then that talked about the redactions of even silly things like the word “interrorgation.”

As the focus on the physical access to the detainees was going forward in 2003, there was not as much being done on the issue of access to the videotapes, audio tapes and statements, primarily bc the Bush consiglieres, fka DOJ, said there were not any. The made the sworn certification to the court in 2003 that such things did not exist. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/22709.html This was reported at least in part at the time – - and you have to wonder where Harman and Rockefeller were then.

During the battle over the detainee access, the issue of statements by the detainees did come up multiple times bc some of what the 4th Cir (of Luttig and Padilla and no consequences for govt fibbing fame) proposed as an “alternative” to access to the detainees for the defense. The Fourth proposed that all the detainee statements could be collected and reviewed by the prosecutors and court, maybe even some written questions tendered by the defense could be asked and those responses worked in. Then, the court and prosecutors could play footsy with that info to generate written summaries of what the detainees “might” have testified about if they had testified, with the court providing jury instructions as to the reliability of the written substitutions. Again, most of that was reported as it took place.

So then things go up to the Sup Ct which makes a mostly non-response in March, 2005, but there may be a couple of kernels there. Bc while the Sup Ct refuses to review the decision by the 4th denying access to the detainees and saying that neutralizing the death penalty was too severe a penalty for not allowing access, the court did premise this on the4th’s assertions about Moussaoui’s ability to “present to the jury portions of what they told government interrogators”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..Mar21.html

That came out March 21 or so and does seem to imply the Sup Ct was ratifying the concept that the trial court should be given access to everything in connection with approving the summary statements.

So in “late 2005″ (although I think I have seen November mentioned), the trial judge AGAIN asks for all info, videotapes, etc. PLUS she had indicated earlier (see the WaPo story above, talking about the prior December order) that if she was going to be allowing summary statements to be used in her court, she wanted someone from gov to be on the hoo, with explaining and certifying “the conditions under which statements of those witnesses were made.”

So by March 21, 2005, there had been plenty published to indicate that the trial court judge was going to have access to all in videotapes and statements of the detainees (and maybe before the 21st, bc with so many law clerks of the Justices “in the fold” so to speak, things leak to those who might need to clean up their act first.

By fall of 2005, it was clear that the Judge was asking again specifically for the things she had been told once already did not exist, as well as asking for info specifically related to the treatment of detainees that generated their non-video statemetns that were being provided.

From the McClatchy story:

… in May 2003, Brinkema ordered the government to produce any video or audiotapes in its possession of interrogations of unidentified captives, but was told none existed. In late 2005, months after Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges but before his death-penalty trial, the judge again sought any interrogation tapes and was again told none existed.

And this piece from 2004 discusses how many of the things redacted from the court opinions were common knowledge and reported contemporaneously.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20040426.html

Indeed, as the district court pointed out in an opinion last year, the government takes the position that “anything” that concerns the detainees is classified information. Even their names have been excised from the courts’ opinions, though they are well known to the press: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

Excised, as well, from the Fourth Circuit’s opinion is any mention of the word “interrogation” and its variants, although a quick read though the opinion reveals the word’s frequent silhouette.

Hope that’s along the lines of what you were looking for.

I have to say – this isn’t the most user friendly site for comments so if it’s not a weekend, I may not get much time to say much, but enjoy the new digs.

Interesting contrast to the later-disclosed photos of Abu Graib that were released for viewing, but only to congress.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t…..729944.ece

“The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed………”

“……Goss is believed to have blamed Grenier for allowing leaks to occur on his watch.

Since the appointment of Goss, the CIA has lost almost all its high-level directors amid considerable turmoil.

“AB “Buzzy” Krongard, a former executive director of the CIA who resigned shortly after Goss’s arrival, said the leaks were unlikely to stop soon, despite proposals to subject officers to more lie detector tests.

Krongard said it was up to President George Bush to stop the rot. “The agency has only one client: the president of the United States,” he said. “The reorganisation is the way this president wanted it. If he is unwilling to reform it, the agency will go on as it is.”

Guess who fired Grenier….Rodriguez….from Wiki:

On February 7, 2006, Rodriguez fired Robert Grenier, his successor as Director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center, for not being “aggressive” enough in combating terrorism.

On August 8, 2007, the Associated Press reported on Jose Rodriguez’s upcoming retirement. The article mentions his Wikipedia entry having been made prior to the “decloaking” of his identity and that the entry contains “inaccuracies.” He will retire on September 30, 2007 and will be replaced by Michael Sulick.”