Reading the hints Helgerson gives us in two interviews.

The “Legal Principles” document appears to have been written with John Yoo’s assistance to exclude some CIA activities from prosecution.

I’ve been promising to return to the way that the CIA IG Report discusses the Congressional and Executive Branch approval for the torture program.

The “legal principles” authorizing torture evolved in some interesting ways over time.

Jason Leopold reported on and posted a late update to the ongoing torture tape FOIA exchange. If I read the latest exchange correctly, Special Prosecutor John Durham is at least identifying–and potentially making available through FOIA–a number of recent documents on the torture tape destruction.

Today’s letter does two things. First, it withdraws John Durham’s objection to Judge Hellerstein’s order that:

The government shall produce documents relating to the destruction of the

ABC’s story on the detailed briefings the Principals’ committee received on the torture of top detainees seems designed to focus the attention of the torture tape inquiry on the top lawyers in the Administration who had a motive to approve the destruction of the torture tapes.

Jane Harman’s letter to Scott Muller verifies something I had speculated–that CIA IG John Helgerson’s inquiry into the interrogation practices of the CIA, and his conclusion that those practices constituted cruel and inhuman treatment–were at the center of the torture tape debates.