Judge May Subpoena CIA for Information on Destroyed Tapes
A federal judge in New York said yesterday that he is inclined against holding the CIA in contempt for failing to produce information about destroyed interrogation videotapes in a freedom of information lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said a contempt citation would serve no purpose other than to create “a newspaper headline,” the New York Law Journal reports. Instead, Hellerstein said he would focus on a remedy to find out why the CIA failed to give tape information to the American Civil Liberties Union in its suit, the New York Times reports.
Hellerstein said he was considering issuing subpoenas for the testimony of CIA officials or for written notes of officials who had viewed the tapes.
The ACLU is seeking materials that include Office of Legal Counsel memos authorizing harsh interrogation methods and videotapes believed to depict government teams abusing Guantanamo prisoners, ABAJournal.com reported yesterday.
Hellerstein indicated in yesterday’s hearing that he was concerned the government may have kept information about the tapes out of investigative files maintained by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General to avoid freedom of information requirements.
Addressing the lawyer for the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Skinner, Hellerstein said, “It seems to me that you were gulled, and that the court was gulled.”
