As we learn that one man in the White House has given up his appeal of being found guilty of obstruction of justice, another count can be levied against the White House. The last one was for uncovering the identity of undercover agent Valerie Plame. This one is for destroying evidence of torture, despite being told by a judge not to erase the tapes.
From The Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics[...].The CIA destroyed the tapes in November 2005. That June, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. had 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."
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued a nearly identical order that July.
At the time, that seemed to cover all detainees in U.S. custody. But Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the terrorism suspects whose interrogations were videotaped and then destroyed, weren't at Guantanamo Bay. They were prisoners that existed off the books _ and apparently beyond the scope of the court's order.
Attorneys say that might not matter. David H. Remes, a lawyer for Yemeni citizen Mahmoad Abdah and others, asked Kennedy this week to schedule a hearing on the issue.
Though Remes acknowledged the tapes might not be covered by Kennedy's order, he said, "It is still unlawful for the government to destroy evidence, and it had every reason to believe that these interrogation records would be relevant to pending litigation concerning our client."
Now President Bush is claiming that he only heard about the matter last week. This proves yet again that George is either lying or cannot control his White House. I'm gonna go with the former on this, the President had to know what was going on. His track record for telling the truth is far too f%*ked up to believe him now. I'd believe that he quit drinking cold turkey for twenty years before I'd take his word on not torturing people.
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