Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus!

76 – imbeciles, or co-conspirators with a vested interest.

I am not joking in the least this time (I fully admit my reputation). I also heard someone say, on either CNN or MSNBC, that “this is really going to throw their document programs into disarray”. or close thereto.

it wasn’t your reputation – it was the last few years of the bush administration that has me unable to tall truth from fiction. *g*

and of course my power goes out – again – so have no clue what’s going on and am going to try to catch up now. sounds like the shit is hitting the fan (fingers crossed)

Knowledge of details of orders or not, here’s what was public knowledge in 2005.
A. John Ashcroft and Larry Thompson were being sued by a rendition/torture victim, Arar, under the Torture Victims Act.
B. Jose Padilla had been picked up on an arrest warrant and his lawyers had immediately and publically claimed that one of the sources for the warrant was Zubaydah and that he had been tortured and there were motions on voiding the arrest warrant as unconstitutionally issued based on tortured statements.
C. Moussaoui had been publically claiming that Zubaydah could exonerate him and that Zubaydah was being tortured.
D. All kinds of groups and members of Congress were asking for information on torture.
E. The US has something called the War Crimes Act and is a party to the Torture Conventions and enables that in part through the Torture Victims Act and those statutes were implicated by the tapes and claims under those statutes were being actively, openly and publically pursued
F. Men in at LEAST TWO pending cases in the US, Moussaoui and Padilla, had specifically raised Zubaydah and his interrogation in their cases.

I’m very sorry to tell Herms and Eatinger this, but whether they knew of the specifics of orders or not, with all that (and more, there was the Comey Padilla press conference and their evidence from those tapes that he had misrepresented to the American public, the threats from an FBI to arrest CIA interrogators, the very public claims by FBI Agent Coleman about torture, etc.) there was not one question but that destruction would be obstruction.

Not only that, but to the extent anyone actually believed the lies of people like Ashcroft, Tenet, Bush, Comey, Cheney, etc. about the “important intelligence” then destruction of the tapes was putting national security completely at risk. That’s a different concern than the very clear and very violated standards on obstruction of justice by destruction of evidence that would be important in several pending cases, but it is still a factor. If the info had a claim of classification, then how could destruction of classified info not be a crime unless it was appropriately authorized? If the “classifed” information from the “harsh interrogation” was all generated at the order of the Executive, then its the Executive who has to make the decision on what happens. What corporate lawyer would tell an VP that he can destroy files specifically ordered created and kept by the CEO, without getting an ok from the CEO?

And btw, why was Rizzo not giving out directives for documents to be preserved as any good lawyer does even prior to any court order bc of the knowledge that it doesn’t take violation of a court order to be guilty of obstruction. It’s the first thing a lawyer who doesn’t want to be caught in obstruction claims does. You tell your clients – do not destroy anything. You don’t wait for a court order and then tell only some people, here and there, that it might be ok to destroy or it might not, you have no real opinion on it.

Not one believable shred in claims that lawyers would have had any valid reason to think they were doing anything other than conspiring at obstruction when they ok’d destruction and that doesn’t need active knowledge of an existing court order. Then there is the constructive knowlege issue as well and Rizzo’s culpability if he didn’t issue a no destruction notice.

And EW, it was a small chemical explosion at the FOX News building on Monday, a chemical used in the heating and cooling system fell on the floor and mixed with something else — sounds like the worker bee involved dropped the stuff by accident.

Absolutely agree about that. But we’re trying to guess where a fire is based on the organization of the office. I suspect that Addington took over Libby’s office, but that’s just a guess.

Ok, ok, Addington was never formally Deadeye’s NSA. My bad. *g*

But with Addington’s previous duty as assistant general counsel of the CIA, he probably never skimps on offering Deadeye NS advice (Heck yes Mr. VP, we gotta destroy our copies of the CIA interrogation tapes ’cause it will eventually leak. Everything always does. Shall I light the match or would you like the pleasure?).