Losing/Destroying Evidentiary Records Yet Another Hallmark of Bush Crime Administration
Losing incriminating records is another hallmark of the criminal Bush administration and now their politicized flunkies in the Defense Department and CIA are doing the same.
The continuing scandal of missing emails reported by Mother Jones this month states, "The White House, which is nothing if not predictable, has of course refused to answer any questions about the "lost" emails, which could contain information on everything from Valerie Plame to the U.S. Attorneys scandal to Hurricane Katrina. But a court order (PDF) issued Tuesday by D.C. District Court Judge John Facciola gives the administration five business days to answer four questions about whether and how the emails are backed-up.
"If the emails are not on the backup tapes, that could lead to an even bigger legal standoff. 'If they deleted the backups knowing that they were the only remaining copies of these missing emails, that raises all sorts of questions about criminal misconduct....
"The Clinton administration had a system that sorted emails automatically and stored them in a secure, searchable archive, but the Bush administration discarded that system when it came into office. As far as anyone outside the White House knows, that system was never replaced, so federal and presidential records were commingled."
This administration, among its many crimes, may also have violated the Presidential Records Act.
A Bush administration politicized Pentagon and CIA seems to be following the White House example (or directive?).
Now, as The Guardian reports,
"The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.
"Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.
"The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - 'were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost', Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.
"The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.
"Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.
"Cameras that run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers. It is unclear how much, if any, prisoner mistreatment was on the taped-over video, but the military admitted that the automatic erasure "likely destroyed" potential evidence in at least one prisoner's case.
"The erased tapes may have violated a 2005 court order to preserve "all evidence [of] the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees" at Guantánamo. The order was retroactive, so it also applies to the 2003 loss of al-Qahtani's records.
"David H Remes, a lawyer for 16 Guantánamo prisoners, said the CIA's destruction of interrogation videos shows the US government is capable of getting rid of potentially incriminating evidence.
" '[In Guantánamo] the government had a system that automatically overwrote records,' Remes told the Guardian. 'That is a passive form of evidence destruction. If a party has destroyed evidence in one place, there's no reason to assume it has preserved evidence in another place.'
"More than 24,000 interrogations were videotaped at Guantánamo, according to a US army report unearthed by researchers at Seton Hall University in New Jersey."
If, as Bush and his high level "principals" torture team claim, that their approval of enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding was legal, there would be no reason to destroy evidence of the interrogations.
It was torture, it was illegal, and they know it. So it's just more of the same: egregious lies and crime cover-ups by the anti-human rights, anti-Constitution Bush torture administration and its flunkies.
And impeachment is still off the table.
The continuing scandal of missing emails reported by Mother Jones this month states, "The White House, which is nothing if not predictable, has of course refused to answer any questions about the "lost" emails, which could contain information on everything from Valerie Plame to the U.S. Attorneys scandal to Hurricane Katrina. But a court order (PDF) issued Tuesday by D.C. District Court Judge John Facciola gives the administration five business days to answer four questions about whether and how the emails are backed-up.
"If the emails are not on the backup tapes, that could lead to an even bigger legal standoff. 'If they deleted the backups knowing that they were the only remaining copies of these missing emails, that raises all sorts of questions about criminal misconduct....
"The Clinton administration had a system that sorted emails automatically and stored them in a secure, searchable archive, but the Bush administration discarded that system when it came into office. As far as anyone outside the White House knows, that system was never replaced, so federal and presidential records were commingled."
This administration, among its many crimes, may also have violated the Presidential Records Act.
A Bush administration politicized Pentagon and CIA seems to be following the White House example (or directive?).
Now, as The Guardian reports,
"The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.
"Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.
"The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - 'were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost', Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.
"The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.
"Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.
"Cameras that run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers. It is unclear how much, if any, prisoner mistreatment was on the taped-over video, but the military admitted that the automatic erasure "likely destroyed" potential evidence in at least one prisoner's case.
"The erased tapes may have violated a 2005 court order to preserve "all evidence [of] the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees" at Guantánamo. The order was retroactive, so it also applies to the 2003 loss of al-Qahtani's records.
"David H Remes, a lawyer for 16 Guantánamo prisoners, said the CIA's destruction of interrogation videos shows the US government is capable of getting rid of potentially incriminating evidence.
" '[In Guantánamo] the government had a system that automatically overwrote records,' Remes told the Guardian. 'That is a passive form of evidence destruction. If a party has destroyed evidence in one place, there's no reason to assume it has preserved evidence in another place.'
"More than 24,000 interrogations were videotaped at Guantánamo, according to a US army report unearthed by researchers at Seton Hall University in New Jersey."
If, as Bush and his high level "principals" torture team claim, that their approval of enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding was legal, there would be no reason to destroy evidence of the interrogations.
It was torture, it was illegal, and they know it. So it's just more of the same: egregious lies and crime cover-ups by the anti-human rights, anti-Constitution Bush torture administration and its flunkies.
And impeachment is still off the table.
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