Judge Orders Hearing On CIA Tapes

Rejects Calls From Justice Department To Stay Out Of Controversy Over Interrogation Videos

(CBS/AP)  The Bush administration must answer questions about the destruction of CIA interrogation videos of two al Qaeda suspects, a federal judge said Tuesday, rejecting the government's efforts to keep the courts out of the investigation.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy ordered Justice Department lawyers to appear before him Friday at 11 a.m. to discuss whether destroying the tapes, which showed two al Qaeda suspects being questioned, violated a court order.

The Justice Department has urged Congress and the courts to back off, saying its investigators need time to complete their inquiry. Government attorneys say the courts don't have the authority to get involved in the matter and could jeopardize the case.

For now, at least, Kennedy disagreed. Attorneys in unrelated cases, meanwhile, began pressing other judges to demand information about the tapes.

"Just because the judge wants to have a hearing doesn't mean he is going to rule against the government," CBS News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen said. "But I suspect that federal lawyers are going to have some tap dancing to do in court as they explain how those CIA videotapes could have been destroyed in 2005 when there were questions about whether they fell under the judge's do-not-destroy order."

In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, said the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

"We want more than just the government's assurances. The government has given these assurances in the past and they've proven unreliable," Remes said. "The recent revelation of the CIA tape destruction indicates that the government cannot be trusted to preserve evidence."

Kennedy did not say why he was ordering the hearing or what he planned to ask. Even if the judge accepts the argument that the government did not violate his order, he still could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Also Tuesday, lawyers for a man convicted of terrorism charges alongside Jose Padilla asked a federal judge in Miami to force the government to turn over any remaining evidence regarding Zubaydah's interrogation. Prosecutors have acknowledged that Zubaydah provided information identifying Padilla as an al Qaeda operative working on a purported "dirty bomb" plot, leading to his May 2002 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Lawyer Ken Swartz said information about his client, convicted terrorism supporter Adham Amin Hassoun, might be found in those interrogations.

In a third case, this one involving another Guantanamo Bay detainee, attorney Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice asked U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington to schedule a hearing. Kessler's order, filed in July 2005, is almost identical to Kennedy's, and Hafetz says he worries key evidence was destroyed.

The Justice Department had no comment on Kennedy's decision to hold a hearing. Its lawyers are working with the CIA to investigate the destruction of the tapes and urged Kennedy to give them space and time to let them investigate.

Remes had urged Kennedy not to comply.

"Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse," Remes wrote in court documents this week.

The Bush administration has taken a similar strategy in its dealings with Congress on the issue. Last week, the Justice Department urged lawmakers to hold off on questioning witnesses and demanding documents because that evidence is part of a joint CIA-Justice Department investigation.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey also refused to give Congress details of the government's investigation into the matter Friday, saying doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure.

Kennedy served as a federal prosecutor during the Nixon and Ford administrations until he was named a federal magistrate judge in 1976. President Carter appointed him to be a local Washington judge and President Clinton appointed him to the federal bench.

[jon2012-2009]

... there is something ethically rotten deep in the core of the Republican party. It is not PC to say this, but it is true, and it dates back at least to Nixon. Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Iraq War, just to cite a few major trophes from a much longer piece of work. All are Republican scandals. Against this we have what on the Democratic side, cash in a freezer, and Bill Clinton lying about a *******. One is an assault on the fundamental structure of our government, the other is just pathetic human frailty.
Posted by watcher269 at 03:09 AM : Dec 19, 2007

This propensity for intellectual dishonesty among Republicans is quite remarkable. Add to this their constant claims of moral superiority. It''s bizarre.

And notice how difficult it is to hold a rational exchange with any of them? Try and see where that gets you.

I''ve often thought of Republicans as kind of brain-addled. And that''s being kind.

[abbe91]

Related ...

http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/more-250-torture-victims-come-forward-sue-caci-participating-conspiracy-tort

[neobrian-2009]

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
Ben Says it the Best! Don`t listen to LIARS ! They ONLY tell you what they want you to hear,e.g. " Resident Shrub and his drum corp of corrupt followers"

[neobrian-2009]

Poopfor brains is a Brainwashed Shrubbie
Has nothing better to do,than to call people names . He then fails at his attempts to uphold His King W.Without a doubt,the W orst resident to Ever Occupy our presidency.Prices are out of control,mortgage fraud,
a recession looms,corruption is at an all time high. The list is as endless as stinkybrain is shallow." Get a Life !"Try to think of others,besides your ''criminal idols'' that you hopelessly attempt to defend.Better yet,Just " SHUT UP "

[taotxzen]

December 19, 2007

Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON %u2014 At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President *** Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.

It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.

One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been %u201Cvigorous sentiment%u201D among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Some other officials assert that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes. Those officials acknowledged, however, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal.

The destruction of the tapes is being investigated by the Justice Department, and the officials would not agree to be quoted by name while that inquiry is under way.

Spokesmen for the White House, the vice president%u2019s office and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article, also citing the inquiry.

The new information came to light as a federal judge on Tuesday ordered a hearing into whether the tapes%u2019 destruction violated an order to preserve evidence in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 16 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The tapes documented harsh interrogation methods used in 2002 on Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects in C.I.A. custody.

The current and former officials also provided new details about the role played in November 2005 by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency%u2019s clandestine branch, who ultimately ordered the destruction of the tapes.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

The officials said that before he issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws.

The agency did not make either Mr. Hermes or Mr. Eatinger available for comment.

Current and former officials said the two lawyers informed the C.I.A.%u2019s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, about the legal advice they had provided. But officials said Mr. Rodriguez did not inform either Mr. Rizzo or Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, before he sent the cable to destroy the tapes.
%u201CThere was an expectation on the part of those providing legal guidance that additional bases would be touched,%u201D said one government official with knowledge of the matter. %u201CThat didn%u2019t happen.%u201D
Robert S. Bennett, a lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, insisted that his client had done nothing wrong and suggested that Mr. Rodriguez had been authorized to order the destruction of the tapes. %u201CHe had a green light to destroy them,%u201D Mr. Bennett said.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Until their destruction, the tapes were stored in a safe in the C.I.A. station in the country where the interrogations took place, current and former officials said. According to one former senior intelligence official, the tapes were never sent back to C.I.A. headquarters, despite what the official described as concern about keeping such highly classified material overseas.

Top officials of the C.I.A%u2019s clandestine service had pressed repeatedly beginning in 2003 for the tapes%u2019 destruction, out of concern that they could leak and put operatives in both legal and physical jeopardy.
The only White House official previously reported to have taken part in the discussions was Ms. Miers, who served as a deputy chief of staff to President Bush until early 2005, when she took over as White House counsel. While one official had said previously that Ms. Miers%u2019s involvement began in 2003, other current and former officials said they did not believe she joined the discussions until 2005.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Besides the Justice Department inquiry, the Congressional intelligence committees have begun investigations into the destruction of the tapes, and are looking into the role that officials at the White House and Justice Department might have played in discussions about them. The C.I.A. never provided the tapes to federal prosecutors or to the Sept. 11 commission, and some lawmakers have suggested that their destruction may have amounted to obstruction of justice.
Newsweek reported this week that John D. Negroponte, who was director of national intelligence at the time the tapes were destroyed, sent a memorandum in the summer of 2005 to Mr. Goss, the C.I.A. director, advising him against destroying the tapes. Mr. Negroponte left the job this year to become deputy secretary of state, and a spokesman for the director of national intelligence declined to comment on the Newsweek article.
The court hearing in the Guantanamo case, set for Friday in Washington by District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. over the government%u2019s objections, will be the first public forum in which officials submit to questioning about the tapes%u2019 destruction.