Well, here are some other things that don’t make sense to me. Are people truly certain that ONLY the Intel 4 were briefed, and not the full “gang of 8?”

I’m no expert, but it seems that under Sec 413 the Presidential perogative is either the full intel committees OR the gang of 8. Not so much just the Intel 4. More and more reasons why Pelosi wanted impeachment off the table and no Dems have done any kind of battle over torture and the kidnap/abuse and subsequent deaths of innocent Afghan, Iraqi and other nations protected persons who have been disappeared around the world into military and CIA abuse?

Also, what defense do members of Congress who knew about the existence of tapes make to their failures to notify a) the 9/11 Commission which was requesting information on any such tapes and b) the Federal Judge in the Moussaoui case, Brinkema, who was also requesting the same?

If Harman and Rockefeller did NOT know the tapes were destroyed, then they DID know that the Executive Branch was lying to the Commission and, even more disturbingly, to the third branch of government – the Judicial Branch.

This just makes me ballistic and not many are focusing on the severe deriliciations and improprieties and obstruction issues resulting if Harman, Rockefeller, etc. in the Legislative Branch were sitting mum while the Executive Branch outright lied to the Judicial Branch.

Turley gets this. I don’t want to go beyond fair use, but all of his entries are worth the read. For this particular issue, though, he says:

Fifth, it confirms that some Democratic members had to know not only that waterboarding was occurring but that critical evidence being sought by the courts was destroyed.This last question is perhaps the most disturbing. Many of us are still in shock that Senators Schumer and Feinstein prevented a showdown over waterboarding in the confirmation hearing of Attorney General Mukasey. I opined at the time that part of the reason is that Democrats knew of waterboarding and would be implicated in the resulting scandal. Waterboarding is not just a crime, it is defined as a war crime. Now, it seems that Democrats may have been aware of destruction of evidence and potential obstruction.

http://jonathanturley.org/2007…..for-years/

He’s opined since the Mukasey hearing, but I’ve pretty much figured since Pelosi really dug in on impeachment being off the table and blocking subpoenas and blocking contempt and reining in Conyers etc. that she doesn’t want in depth investigations. If she doesn’t want them, it’s because she doesn’t want what they will demonstrate – it’s as if she thinks that by blocking real investigation into the Bush admin activities she can prevent people from ever guessing the extent of complicity of Dem leadership.

And btw – what about other tapes? Everything you read is so very very parsed that nothing is getting at the existence of other tapes, perhaps discussed on other dates, and their destruction. Or, as pointed out above, other digital recordings. Or pictures. Or audio. Or video handed over to Egyptian interrogators to hold. Or kept at the ultra secret blacksites or by other Bush torture pals or by the military v. the CIA or …

We do know that prosecutors appearing before Brinkema:

said that the CIA didn’t notify them until Sept. 13 that it had discovered a videotape and the transcript of an interrogation of an unidentified detainee. Prosecutors said they then asked the CIA to perform “an exhaustive review” for any other recordings of roughly a half dozen al Qaida captives whom Moussaoui had sought as defense witnesses, and a second videotape and a brief audio tape were discovered.Among the prisoners whose testimony Moussaoui sought were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , who allegedly admitted masterminding the 9/11 attacks after he was waterboarded; Ramzi Binalshibh, a senior al Qaida member who allegedly coordinated the attacks; and financier Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi . Summaries of statements from those three and several others were read at his trial.”The fact that audio/video recording of enemy combatant interrogations occurred, and that the United States was in possession of three of those recordings is, as noted, inconsistent with factual assertions in CIA declarations dated May 9, 2003 . . . and November 14, 2005 ,” the prosecutors wrote.

http://jonathanturley.org/2007…..-material/

So there are those recordings. We also know that Judge Brinkema is joining a long list of Judges to whom the DOJ has “fibbed” on a long laundry list of matters, from FISA court firewalls to criminal case unwarranted surveillance to criminal case existence of evidence to nature of GITMO detainees as protected persons who were human trafficking victims to transalations of surveillance tapes with warrants, to the existence of hundreds of pages of excuplatory evidence hidden, etc.

Per the link directly above, Brinkema:

…stated that she could no longer rely on the representations of the government after the obvious misrepresentations

She joins other Judges, such as Kessler and even the Boeing benefitted Luttig, in recognizing that the Bush DOJ are liars. Not one or two, here and there, but spread everywhere. And who can be surprised after what Whitehouse stated on the floor and what anyone who has been paying attention has known from the beginning. When this DOJ began, 7 years or more ago, taking their oaths to the Bush family or the Federalist Society or the Golden Idol of a perpetual Fundamentalist Republican Party Majority or the supremity of their own Executive Branch that empowered them to operate with no limits – – – they were all bowing down before the absolution given by agreeing that they are “required” to adhere to the “legal determinations” of an immoral criminal who can tell them it is perfectly “legal” to lie to the courts and to Congress.

They each paint themselves as miniature Pilates, washing their hands in the Bush Bowl and saying they have no personal responsibility and no personal role in the ultimate depravities.

And the courts and the legislature shout hosannah.

56 a POTUS centered press, now a part of the 2nd branch That sums it pretty elegantly.

73 – Selise, how could our country be any weaker in international negotiations than we are now? Bush has no international strength – just a shared national and international horror, similar to the feeling you might get when a toddler wanders over and picks up a loaded weapon with the safety off and begins to waft it around.

EW – I’m not sure if I know the exact issues you are asking about or if I would have the answers. For your love of timelines, here’s a pale version of yours that was done for the Moussaoui case:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/facult…..ology.html

But here’s pretty much what happened if I understand correctly. From the very beginning (2003), Moussaoui’s defense lawyers were asking for accesss to detainees and all statements, interrogation results, etc. from them. In particular, the focus was on getting access to the detainees, but they also wanted access to all statements. In connection with that, the judge entered an order requiring that gov turn over all the info and in connection with that ordered that the detainees themselves be made available or requiring Gov to take the death penalty off the table if it would not make detainees available. This was all reported in more or less detail contemporaneously (e.g. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12…..index.html ) with observations at the time about all the redactions of things that everyone knew – there was a findlaw article back then that talked about the redactions of even silly things like the word “interrorgation.”

As the focus on the physical access to the detainees was going forward in 2003, there was not as much being done on the issue of access to the videotapes, audio tapes and statements, primarily bc the Bush consiglieres, fka DOJ, said there were not any. The made the sworn certification to the court in 2003 that such things did not exist. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/22709.html This was reported at least in part at the time – – and you have to wonder where Harman and Rockefeller were then.

During the battle over the detainee access, the issue of statements by the detainees did come up multiple times bc some of what the 4th Cir (of Luttig and Padilla and no consequences for govt fibbing fame) proposed as an “alternative” to access to the detainees for the defense. The Fourth proposed that all the detainee statements could be collected and reviewed by the prosecutors and court, maybe even some written questions tendered by the defense could be asked and those responses worked in. Then, the court and prosecutors could play footsy with that info to generate written summaries of what the detainees “might” have testified about if they had testified, with the court providing jury instructions as to the reliability of the written substitutions. Again, most of that was reported as it took place.

So then things go up to the Sup Ct which makes a mostly non-response in March, 2005, but there may be a couple of kernels there. Bc while the Sup Ct refuses to review the decision by the 4th denying access to the detainees and saying that neutralizing the death penalty was too severe a penalty for not allowing access, the court did premise this on the4th’s assertions about Moussaoui’s ability to “present to the jury portions of what they told government interrogators”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..Mar21.html

That came out March 21 or so and does seem to imply the Sup Ct was ratifying the concept that the trial court should be given access to everything in connection with approving the summary statements.

So in “late 2005″ (although I think I have seen November mentioned), the trial judge AGAIN asks for all info, videotapes, etc. PLUS she had indicated earlier (see the WaPo story above, talking about the prior December order) that if she was going to be allowing summary statements to be used in her court, she wanted someone from gov to be on the hoo, with explaining and certifying “the conditions under which statements of those witnesses were made.”

So by March 21, 2005, there had been plenty published to indicate that the trial court judge was going to have access to all in videotapes and statements of the detainees (and maybe before the 21st, bc with so many law clerks of the Justices “in the fold” so to speak, things leak to those who might need to clean up their act first.

By fall of 2005, it was clear that the Judge was asking again specifically for the things she had been told once already did not exist, as well as asking for info specifically related to the treatment of detainees that generated their non-video statemetns that were being provided.

From the McClatchy story:

… in May 2003, Brinkema ordered the government to produce any video or audiotapes in its possession of interrogations of unidentified captives, but was told none existed. In late 2005, months after Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges but before his death-penalty trial, the judge again sought any interrogation tapes and was again told none existed.

And this piece from 2004 discusses how many of the things redacted from the court opinions were common knowledge and reported contemporaneously.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20040426.html

Indeed, as the district court pointed out in an opinion last year, the government takes the position that “anything” that concerns the detainees is classified information. Even their names have been excised from the courts’ opinions, though they are well known to the press: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

Excised, as well, from the Fourth Circuit’s opinion is any mention of the word “interrogation” and its variants, although a quick read though the opinion reveals the word’s frequent silhouette.

Hope that’s along the lines of what you were looking for.

I have to say – this isn’t the most user friendly site for comments so if it’s not a weekend, I may not get much time to say much, but enjoy the new digs.