DOJ Opens Criminal Probe of CIA Tape Destruction
Updated: Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced today that the Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.
Mukasey said John H. Durham, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, will oversee the case.
Last month, the CIA acknowledged it had destroyed tapes of officers harshly interrogating al-Qaida suspects in 2005.
“Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation,” Mukasey said in a statement.
While such a probe normally would be handled by a federal prosecutor in Alexandria, where CIA headquarters is based, Mukasey notes in the release that he asked the Connecticut prosecutor to take the lead out of an “abundance of caution.”
The Washington Post notes that Durham, a registered Republican, is well-known in New England as a “tough, publicity-averse” prosecutor who has specialized in organized crime cases.
This isn’t his first stint as an outside prosecutor. Former Attorney General Janet Reno had tapped Durham to investigate allegations that FBI agents and Boston police had ties to mafia informants, the Post reports.
Updated at 3:30 p.m. CST to add details about Durham.
