2002: CIA starts (?) videotaping interrogations of alleged terrorists.
February 2003: Congress is informed that the tapes exist. California Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter instructing the CIA not to destroy interrogation tapes.
2003: The CIA submitted declarations in the Moussaoui, trial that no recordings of interrogations of terror suspects existed.
2003 to 2005:White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and his successor Harriet E. Miers, Counsel to the Vice President David S. Addington (now Mr. Cheney’s Chief of Staff), and National Security Council Senior Lawyer John B. Bellinger III discussed destruction of the tapes with the CIA.
June 2005: U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. ordered the 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.”
July 2005: U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler filed an identical order in another case.
Summer 2005: John D. Negroponte, then director of national intelligence, sent a memo to CIA Director Porter Goss advising against destroying the tapes.
November 2005: CIA destroyed interrogation tapes on orders of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., chief of the clandestine branch, without informing CIA lawyer John A. Rizzo . The tapes were not from Guantanamo, but from secret CIA prisons overseas.
Oct. 25, 2007:The CIA informed trial and appeals judges in the Moussaoui case that an audiotape and two videotapes of interrogations of Moussaoui exist, blaming a “breakdown in communication at the CIA” for not producing them at trial.p>
November 2, 2005: Washington Post reporter Dana Priest reveals the existence of CIA secret prisons.
November 2006: the Senate Intelligence Committee learned of the tapes’ destruction.
March 2007: The House Intelligence Committee learned of the tapes’ destruction.
December 7, 2007:the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Intelligence Committee announce intentions to open investigations into the tape destruction.
December 13, 2007:The Justice Department files U.S. District Court papers arguing that it was not obligated to preserve the videotapes and advising Judge Kennedy that demanding information about them might complicate its own investigation of the matter. A similar message was sent to congressional oversight committees.
December 18, 2007: U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. ordered Justice Department lawyers to appear before him at 11 a.m. Friday to discuss destruction of interrogation tapes.
January 3, 2008 at 2:47 am
[...] You can find a case timeline here. [...]
February 15, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[...] work for the Guantanamo Audio-Visual Squad. Defendants in the trial planned for the U.S. Naval Base prison can’t speak with their [...]