{"id":4482,"date":"2010-11-09T19:55:35","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T23:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4482"},"modified":"2010-11-09T20:06:37","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T00:06:37","slug":"a-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/09\/a-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"a shame…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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No Charges in Destruction of C.I.A. Interrogation Tapes<\/a>
The New York Times<\/strong>
By MARK MAZZETTI and CHARLIE SAVAGE
November 9, 2010<\/div>\n

WASHINGTON — A federal prosecutor will not bring criminal charges against any of the Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in destroying videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda detainees, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. After an investigation spanning nearly three years, John H. Durham, the special prosecutor assigned to the case by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, has decided not to charge the C.I.A. undercover officers and top lawyers at the agency for their roles in the destruction of the tapes. <\/p>\n

Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said that since that appointment, “a team of prosecutors and F.B.I. agents led by Mr. Durham has conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter.” He continued, “As a result of that investigation, Mr. Durham has concluded that he will not pursue criminal charges for the destruction of the interrogation videotapes.” <\/p>\n

Jose A. Rodriguez, the former head of the agency’s clandestine service, ordered his staff in November 2005 to destroy tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The tapes had been kept in a safe in the agency’s station in Thailand, the country where the interrogations were conducted in 2002. <\/p>\n

Mr. Rodriguez took responsibility for the destruction of the tapes, according to current and former government officials, and said that C.I.A. lawyers had authorized his order. The agency withheld the fact that the tapes existed from , federal courts and the Sept. 11 Commission, which had asked the agency for records of the interrogations… <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It’s a shame. Because he’s guilty. From my previous post<\/strong><\/a><\/u>:<\/div>\n
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Jose Rodriguez is the CIA Agent who ordered the tapes of Abu Zubaydah being tortured to be erased [my timeline is here<\/strong><\/a>]. The New York Times had revealed the "extrordinary renditions<\/strong><\/a>" on March 6, 2005<\/font><\/strong> and the Washington Post had broken the story about the CIA’s "black sites<\/strong><\/a>" on November 1, 2005<\/font><\/strong> [probably instigating the push to destroy the tapes]. The tapes were destroyed on .November 9, 2005<\/font><\/strong>. But it wasn’t until  December 6, 2007<\/font><\/strong> that the New York Times reported that the CIA had destroyed the tapes<\/strong><\/a>. And for review, these emails quote Rodriguez as to why he destroyed them [as if we didn’t know]:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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"…the heat from destroying is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain – he said that out of context they would make us look terrible. It would be devastating to us…"<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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And I speculated in April [cloak and dagger types…<\/a><\/strong>] when this information became available that Jose Rodriguez was, in fact, on the tapes himself or in charge of the interrogation [C<\/strong>="Jose<\/strong>" and D<\/strong>="CTC<\/strong>" (CounterTerrorism Center<\/strong>)] giving him further impetus to destroy them [the timeline supports that assertion].<\/div>\n

What’s new in today’s report is that Jose becomes the mastermind behind destroying the tapes. He asked the lawyers about his authority, but in a way that had them answering a hypothetical. And when he ordered the tapes destroyed, he copied noone who could have stopped him, including the consulted lawyers. In the words of the spy-thrillers, he was "off the reservation" [acting on his own].<\/p>\n

So Jose Rodriguez had the guilty mind – mens rea<\/strong><\/em> ["they would make us look terrible. It would be devastating to us…"] and the guilty action – actus reus<\/em><\/strong> [he ordered the tapes destroyed without directly consulting superiors]. In addition, if I’m right, there was a specific mens rea<\/strong><\/em> [covering his own ass because he was on the tapes in person or directing the interrogations]. That’s Obstruction of Justice<\/strong> no matter what language you use. No wonder John Durham won’t give Rodriguez immunity to get him to testify. And emptywheel<\/font><\/strong> has a post up correctly pointing out the obvious flaw in this AP report [The AP’s “Most Complete Published Account” that Leaves Out Torture<\/a><\/strong>]. They leave out the fact that Zubaydah’s torture antedates any approval from the DOJ OLC<\/strong>, and the whole issue of experimentation by the torturing psychologists.<\/p>\n

There may be a supreme irony in all of this. Obama said no one would be prosecuted for following a superior’s orders. Whatever went on with Zubaydah probably came from on high, but Rodriguez’s destroying the tapes didn’t…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
[see Torture? Check. Covering Up Torture? Check. Rule of Law? Nope<\/strong>.<\/a>]<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No Charges in Destruction of C.I.A. Interrogation Tapes The New York Times By MARK MAZZETTI and CHARLIE SAVAGE November 9, 2010 WASHINGTON — A federal prosecutor will not bring criminal charges against any of the Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in destroying videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda detainees, the Justice Department said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}