Federal Prosecutor Named to CIA Probe
Attorney General Michael Mukasey appoints John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to examine whether CIA officers broke the law when they destroyed videotapes of the harsh interrogation methods used by the agency.
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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
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And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
The CIA is at a center of a new criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced yesterday that a federal prosecutor will examine whether CIA officers and maybe other government officials broke the law. They destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of suspected terrorists.
These tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed three years later and they reportedly showed the harsh interrogation methods used by the agency.
NPR's Dina Temple-Raston is covering the story and joins us now. Let's talk first about the man who's been assigned to investigate this. His name is John Durham.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: John Durham, a very interesting guy. He's a Connecticut prosecutor. And he may be best known for leading a Justice Department probe that looked at whether or not the FBI and other law enforcement agencies leaked FBI information to two notorious leaders of a South Boston gang. In fact, a retired FBI agent John Connelly Jr. was ultimately found guilty of leaking information to those mob characters.
INSKEEP: Hmm.
TEMPLE-RASTON: And he was asked to actually take part in that investigation by then Attorney General Janet Reno because law enforcement in the Boston area had a conflict of interest. So there's some parallels here. Attorney General Mukasey said yesterday that the Virginia office had removed itself from looking at the state's case to avoid any possible appearance of conflict of interest.
INSKEEP: Now let's remember what's on these videotapes and why it would be, at least in theory, a violation of the law to destroy them.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, there are a hundred hours, there are hundreds of hours of tapes and it's unclear exactly what's on them. But the one that - the ones that everyone is focusing on are tapes that apparently show waterboarding, which is like controlled drowning of a al-Qaida suspect named Abu Zubaydah, and that was in 2002.
And the CIA hanged on to these tapes apparently until 2005 when they decided to destroy them. And that was really an issue within the administration. There are some people at the CIA who wanted to destroy them supposedly because they would cause some problems for the interrogators. That's what the head of the CIA said.
The Bush administration was saying, hey, we shouldn't destroy them. This is going to lead to trouble and that seems to have been what happened.
INSKEEP: And I guess in those intervening three years, there were people who wanted the tapes. Defense lawyers for a terror suspect, the 9/11 commission, they asked for information like this and weren't given. Is that why it could be at least considered a criminal violation to destroy them?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Possibly. Now we don't know exactly what it is they are looking for, but there are several things. There could be contempt of court, if the court had actually - it turns out to these tapes encompass something that the courts would have wanted, or there could be something as bad as obstruction of justice if this is something that was actually subpoenaed and they had destroyed them anyway.
INSKEEP: Now what is this appointment of these prosecutors say about Michael Mukasey, the new attorney general?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, it actually says quite a bit about him. Now Durham, because of what he's done in the past - he's known as a very fierce investigator. Some people that I spoke to yesterday said that he was sort of like Patrick Fitzgerald-like, which certainly does not make him a favorite of the Bush administration.
INSKEEP: Let's remember that's the special prosecutor who looked into violations having to do with the Valerie Plame's CIA whistleblower.
TEMPLE-RASTON: And Scooter Libby. So and that's how that ended up working out. And what's interesting is sometimes it's not actually the crime that you're looking at, but the cover up after the crime that's going to be the problem, as was the case in Scooter Libby's case. Fitzgerald didn't actually find the crime he was looking for. He found obstruction instead. And what the concern is among some Bush administration officials is that this will go in that sort of direction.
INSKEEP: And people who know about John Durham the prosecutor say he's tenacious as Fitzgerald was tenacious.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Tenacious, and apparently not a political bone in his body.
INSKEEP: And has apparently gotten the respect of Republicans and Democrats if a Republican attorney general and a Democratic attorney general chose him for a special assignment.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Indeed, although, apparently he's a registered Republican.
INSKEEP: Okay. Well, there's some information and we'll continue listening for more. Dina, thanks very much.
TEMPLE-RASTON: My pleasure.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's Dina Temple-Raston this morning.
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Justice Dept. Appoints Prosecutor on CIA Tapes
The Justice Department will use a veteran public corruption prosecutor to head up a full-blown criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes of terror suspects being interrogated.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey tapped John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor in Connecticut who has prosecuted handled organized crime cases, to head the investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes in 2005.
The videos allegedly showed officers using tough interrogation methods on two al-Qaida suspects. The revelation touched off a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by the Justice Department into whether the CIA violated any laws or obstructed congressional inquiries, such as the one led by the Sept. 11 Commission.
Durham, who has served with the Justice Department for 25 years, has a reputation as one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors. He was appointed to investigate the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston, a probe that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison.
Previous Experience
"Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise," Durham, a Republican, said in 2002 after Connolly's conviction, a rare public statement for a prosecutor who usually avoids reporters.
Prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., had removed themselves from the case. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry also removed himself.
The U.S. Attorney in the district is handing other CIA interrogation tapes for the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The office is also involved with litigation related to detainees who say they are being held based on evidence gathered from coerced testimony. The destroyed CIA tapes could be used in those cases.
Mukasey said yesterday that the Virginia office had removed itself from the tapes case to avoid the possible appearance of a conflict.
Durham will serve as acting U.S. attorney on the case, a designation the Justice Department frequently makes when top prosecutors take themselves off a case. He will not serve as a special prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who acted autonomously while investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.
"The Justice Department went out and got somebody with complete independence and integrity," said former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, who worked with Durham. "No politics whatsoever. It's going to be completely by the book and he's going to let the chips fall where they may."
Durham has shown no tolerance for corruption in either party. He supervised the corruption investigation that sent former Republican Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and several members of his administration to prison.
Investigated FBI
He may be best known for leading a Justice Department probe that looked at whether the FBI and other law enforcement agencies leaked FBI information to two notorious leaders of a South Boston gang. Retired FBI agent John Connolly, Jr. was ultimately found guilty of leaking information to the mob figures. Then-Attorney General Janet Reno asked Durham to handle that investigation because law enforcement in the Boston area had a conflict of interest.
The CIA already had agreed to open its files to congressional investigators, who have begun reviewing documents at the agency's Virginia headquarters. The House Intelligence Committee has ordered Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed the tapes be destroyed, to appear at a hearing Jan. 16.
In June 2005, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay." Kennedy was overseeing a case in which U.S.-held terror suspects challenged their detention.
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department has argued to Kennedy that the videos weren't covered by his order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas.
From NPR's Dina Temple-Raston and The Associated Press
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