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Bob Baer has a column out stating that he can’t figure out why the torture tapes were destroyed–and repeating CIA spin claiming the torture depicted in the tapes should not, itself, be a legal problem, since it was approved by DOJ. (h/t cs) Did the CIA want to destroy graphic evidence of sleep-deprivation or waterboarding? […]
As I said the other day, most of the documents we received the other day are the 13 or so documents that CIA had cleared for FOIA release, but over which John Durham had declared a law enforcement privilege. This chart compares what we got with what had been declared in Vaughn Indices in November […]
As I noted in my last thread, the latest ACLU document dump is here. And this is, indeed, the set of documents John Durham was withholding for his investigation. I’ve long been interested in the role of the earlier destruction of the torture tapes in Durham’s investigation. As you recall, in December 2002, when the […]
Bmaz had a post up this yesterday, based on this WaPo story, concluding that we’re not going to have real accountability for the destruction of the torture tapes. (Thanks to bmaz for minding the shop while I feted mr. ew’s birthday.) While I agree with bmaz generally that we’re not going to get real accountability […]
There is a report out in the Washington Post that John Durham may be winding up his torture tape investigation and that little, if anything, will come from it.
As I reported on Monday, DOJ lost not only John Yoo and Patrick Philbin’s emails from the period when they were writing the Bybee Memos. It also lost at least 10 documents on torture, a number of them that went into the development of the torture memos. We first learned these documents had disappeared from […]
One of the most fascinating aspects to the torture tape Vaughn Index is the way it hints at a tension between the torturers in the field growing increasingly panicked about the torture tapes and the CIA’s Office of General Counsel’s decision to review the tapes and, subsequently, not to destroy them (yet). The tension grew […]
Jose Rodriguez retired and John Rizzo withdrew his nomination to be CIA General Counsel just as the CIA was becoming aware again of the torture tape destruction.
As William Ockham has noted, there is a new–very informative–Vaughn Index and Declaration out. I’ll have much more to say about these. But for now, look at what documents 3 and 4 from the Vaughn Index tell us about the timing of the torture tape destruction. November 1, 2005: Bill Frist briefed on torture. November […]
When the government possesses videotape evidence of the torture of subjects under its dominion and control, there is only one reason to destroy the tapes. That reason is not because they possess no evidentiary value; in fact it is the direct opposite, it is because they are smoking guns. Videotapes are definitive for one of […]
