Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday that he has decided to order an investigation into possible criminal conduct by members of the Central Intelligence Agency or their subcontractors in the deaths of two detainees who were held for possible ties to terrorism.
Holder’s announcement, likely to set off a political firestorm with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks drawing near, follows a probe of more than three years that was headed by John H. Durham, a prosecutor from Connecticut. The Attorney General’s decision that a full-scale investigation is now warranted is a significant blow to the CIA as it goes through a time of transition, with a new Director, David Petraeus, confirmed by the Senate on Thursday.
Details of when and where the two detainees died were not included in Holder’s statement. It has long been known that some detainees in CIA custody were subjected to the ordeal known as “waterboarding” and even more extreme measures, as The New York Times reported in 2009.
The latest development in the case comes more than three years after then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey ordered Durham to investigate the destruction of scores of interrogation videotapes by the CIA, in defiance of a federal court order (see Main Justice’s earlier report.)
In August 2009, Holder recalled, “based on information the Department received pertaining to alleged CIA mistreatment of detainees, I announced that I had expanded Mr. Durham’s mandate to conduct a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations.”
“I made clear at that time that the Department would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees,” Holder said, noting that Durham and his team “reviewed a tremendous volume of information pertaining to the detainees.”
Perhaps significantly, Holder said Durham’s review “included both information and matters that had never previously been examined by the Department.”
No matter how the investigation unfolds in the months ahead, the timing is apt to be politically fraught, as the 2012 election season moves into full swing, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan wear on the minds of politicians and their constituents, and the two major parties debate over which has made the country safer.
But for the moment, at least, Holder got some support from a prominent Republican, as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, praised Holder’s decision. “The Attorney General’s decision is a significant step forward,” Rogers said, according to the Talking Points Memo blog. “I am pleased that the Department of Justice has finally substantially lifted an undeserved cloud of doubt and suspicion from all of our intelligence professionals.”
