"Tapegate" Unravels

By: Christine Lagorio
Topics: Hot Links

(CBS)

The big CIA Tapes news that broke over the weekend prompted a lot of buzz in the media. Now our Andrew Cohen has rendered his own opinion over at CourtWatch.

The Justice Department's controversial court filing on late Friday night — shhh, while everyone is sleeping! — isn't worthy of all the media attention it got over the rest of the weekend.

Neither was Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey's "nuts to you" response to legislators when they asked for updated information about the Department's investigation into Tapegate, the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of terror interrogation videotapes.

The post-happy-hour filing came in the case of two detainees. The federal judge in this case had ordered the government back in 2005 to protect from destruction "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

The Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that he should now inquire no further into Tapegate and that, even if tapes were destroyed by the CIA, they were not at the time subject to his court order because the men in question were not being held at Gitmo.

Check out more of Cohen's commentary here — and let us know what you think.

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by ericmichael1 December 18, 2007 10:37 PM EST: Andy,

I agree the tape should not have been destroyed. But I do not agree fully with your assertions about investigatory information sharing with the U.S. Congress. Let the F.B.I. do their job, finding out if a criminal act has taken place.

If the Congress doesn''t like what they say, then it is time for the dance to begin.

Eric; Reply to this comment


by hhkeller December 18, 2007 4:58 PM EST: Like urin on a tree, I smwell a coverup coming.; Reply to this comment


by thy1138 December 17, 2007 7:57 PM EST: Where I currently reside, my landlady''s children, grew-up with the Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts'' wife, in the Bronx, NY. In a terrible accident, her brother crashed off the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River and perished. I find it terrible that a federal investigation would consider itself above the law and almost omniscient when evidence in it might lead to the prosecution of other crimes perhaps not related to the current round-up is just destroyed, even if they "have nothing to hide".; Reply to this comment