Regarding those destroyed CIA torture taps, the bipartisan chairs of the 9/11 Commission are not happy.
The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.
There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.
Via Glenn Greenwald, who has the essential context.
Sadly, Broderites like Richard Cohen cannot possibly react to this until they find or can credibly make up examples of Democrats torturing detainees, hiding the evidence and lying to investigating commissions about it.
***BIG Update***
Attorney General Mukasey has opened an investigation. Even better:
Mukasey named John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the case. Durham has a reputation as one of the nation’s most relentless prosecutors. He served as an outside prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the FBI’s use of mob informants in Boston and helped send several Connecticut public officials to prison.