New ACLU Torture FOIA Docs Working Thread
There are new documents in at the ACLU from their ongoing FOIA effort on the torture tape destruction matter. Here is the ACLU press release with link:
We’ve received some new documents in our DoD torture FOIA lawsuit, related to the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes. They are posted here: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-department-defense, at the end of the section titled Documents Relating to CIA Contempt, with the date of 01/08/2010.
One thing we found interesting – there are a number of documents that focus on “lessons for the future,” some of those from as early as 8/2002, as though the documents memorialize what the CIA is learning as its interrogation program marches on.
Jeff Kaye has already spotted this one:
I think this is first evidence of actual approval from HQ for tape
destruction. Compare this with previous ACLU timeline (as of 11/09):
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/20091124_Chronology_of_Videotapes.pdf
We knew about the 11/8 request, but not that permission was granted on
that day. If I’m wrong about this, please set me straight.
To be clear, I’m talking about Document 154 in Part 6 of the latest Vaughn release/dump. It’s on pg. 13 out of 35, and is a 11/08/2005 2-pg. cable from HQ to the Field, “Subject: Approval to Destroy Tapes”.
Emphasis added. — In any case, with clear evidence of a crime, how can they claim exemption for this piece of evidence?
Document 153, btw, is a one page cable, also dated 11/8/05, from the Field to HQ requesting permission to destroy the tapes. We must have seen this before, because we already knew that, or had seen that… right?
(My bold)
Whaatt? (Index 1, Doc 14 pg 26)
bmaz or Jeff might you be able to clarify the inference to take away with the word “formatting”. It seems to be more loaded than the typical meaning of “formatting” of a memo.
We’ve seen both of those before. In an earlier post on I speculated the formatting might have been the notes of the OGC lawyer who did the review of the tapes sending it on asking someone to put it into memo form.
Thanks. It just seems odd to attach a draft memo for a request for formatting for another memo? So is there a “final” requesting formatting as well?
Sounds like double-speak.
Tomorrow is January 15, 2010.
Where is the OPR Report?
What are their fears…
Macbeth to Ross
“Our fears do make us traiors.” Macbeth IV,2
The way I’m starting is with the Vaughn declaration of Wendy Hilton (1/08/2010) (30 page PDF).
Page 3 has Footnote 2 which identifies those documents in this batch that are being withheld in whole request of John Durham:
(My Bold)
So Junya & Co. knew and perhaps were even involved!
Document 160 is located on page 25 here (35 page PDF). Unfortunately Document 160 is “undated” but I’d bet that John Durham & Co. could easily fix the general date.
Also in the Vaughn declaration of Wendy Hilton (1/08/2010) (30 page PDF), on page 3 is Footnote 3 which lists documents 156, 157 and 164 which were withheld due to:
Document 156 is described on page 17 of “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 6 (1/08/2010)” (35 page PDF).
Document 156 is described as a MFR (Memorandum For the Record) of a SSCI Member briefing and the date of the document is 02/04/2003.
Based on the “Member Briefing on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)” chart (10 page PDF), Document 156 likely relates to the “Later individual briefing to Rockefeller” mentioned on page 1 of that chart.
Note that Document 156 states:
(My Bold)
I’m guessing Jello Jay had some issues which were passed on to Cheney/Libby/Addington and then were deliberately ignored.
Just curious. How many “ways” could CIA could destroy tapes? How are the methods of tape destruction classified?
Big hammers, then burn.
Exactly!
Now do we know what EO 12958 “as amended” really means? Are we dancing in pixie dust again?
Big magnets first, to scramble anything that might be on the tapes.
(‘first you pillage, then you burn.’)
Ok ok, pillage burn pillage burn pillage pil..no burn pillage burn.
Ok ok, I think I’ve got it.
Heh.
If anyone is in contact with the ACLU folks, you might want to let them know that their entry of “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 4 (1/08/2010)” has a bad link which goes to their blog for “The Hard Numbers Behind Laptop Searches at the Border”.
The correct link for “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 4 (1/08/2010)” should go here.
Hi MadDog. Thanks for pointing that out. It’s been fixed.
Apologize for the OT, but Scott Ritter indicted in alleged Internet child sex sting. Mr. Ritter, a former Iraq weapons inspector for the UN, was one of the Bush administration’s most prominent critics in the run up to the war. The Bush administration and its tradmed clients united to close his access to the media in their march to war.
The facts are not in. It would be a sad chapter in his career, and a sadder one for the US if the sting at issue here had more to do with Karl Rove tactics than child sex.
They DO like to punish people who have opposed them.
@ #11
I saw that earlier myself, but hesitated to post it because it seemed so implausible and I wasn’t sure it was true.
Well, it isn’t all that implausible since he was arrested for the same thing back several years ago. Maybe he was set up …… or maybe he just has a problem; who knows; but it is not that shocking.
@#13
I was completely unaware of the earlier incident(s) involving Ritter.
But I do try to be cautious and wary with that which I post, most especially with such a sensationalistic story as this.
Yeah, it is a little squirmy feeling isn’t it? I would like to not believe it, but crap, who knows?
Well, when the story is already in the morning’s New York Times, it doesn’t accomplish much to ignore it here, though with the tradmed, it’s always necessary to qualify the claim, as I did when mentioning it. (Good thing he wasn’t accused of buying a one-way ticket or anything.)
The consequences of this are likely to be ugly, whether the allegations are true or not, meaning that if they’re not true, the government’s motivation for the indictment is called into question.
Regardless, his reporting and anti-war advocacy remain valid.
Um, I think Mr. Ritter has some problems. If they have video of Ritter doing this on the webcam and can credibly lay the foundation that it was in direct response to the interaction with their officer front (and the evidentiary foundation is exactly where his lawyer will try to attack this), Ritter is done. I tend to halfway trust that the sting was not a set up since it was a local law enforcement operation and not federal. This is exactly the kind of sting local cops run all the time; they just may have caught a bigger than normal fish.
Agreed. I don’t know what the national record, but I know Xenia hasn’t lost one of these sting cases since the very beginning. In fact, I can’t think of even one case in Ohio that the cops have lost once they’ve brought charges and most of ’em don’t even go to trial.
If Ritter’s lawyer is smart, he’ll take this right to a plea bargain and keep his client out of court.
Boxturtle (Though with a prior problem in this area, Ritter won’t likely get a very friendly offer)
“f Ritter’s lawyer is smart, he’ll take this right to a plea bargain and keep his client out of court.” – Teh Turtle
Nah. Ritter has a martyr complex already (witness what he tried to do RE Iraq), so he should double-down, instead. He should get someone like Steven Pinker (from MIT) to be an expert witness and try to argue that older-man/younger-woman relationships are adaptive (in the evolutionary sense), which is actually an easy argument to make, and get the law he was supposedly breaking thrown out.
tee hee x2
If he really tries that, I wanna play him poker!
Boxturtle (And I would make a note to NEVER use his lawyer!)
No one is all good or all bad. Tiger Woods is a world class golfer, but in his personal relationships, he’s a world class idiot. Do we invalidate Woods’ golf scores because he cheated on his wife? So I agree with your conclusion. Of course, war hawks will try to make as much hay about this as they can.
Bob in AZ
Earl, I cancelled my subscription to the NYT years ago.
I had seen the headline on another site yesterday afternoon, and was unaware it had been in the Times that morning.
I was edified that you posted it,as I was uncertain about the “truthiness” of the other site where I saw it, and did not want to post a “dupe”.
I find that Document 63 on page 42 of the “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 4 (1/08/2010)” (real link here) is a “curious” document given its date of 11/10/2005.
Document 63 “…is a two-page email, with an embedded cable discussing a proposal to destroy the videotapes…”
What I find curious is that Document 63 concerns a “…proposal to destroy the videotapes…”.
A “proposal”? On 11/10/2005 when the tapes had already been destroyed the day before on 11/09/2005?
Curious indeed!
And just for the record, the CIA (yes, I’m talkin’ to you Wendy Hilton) might want to correct the date of 11/10/2002 on Document 70 – page 56 on the “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 4 (1/08/2010)” (real link here for the 76 page PDF).
I believe that date should be 11/10/2005 and not 11/10/2002. After all, Document 70 “is a two-page email, with an embedded cable confirming the destruction of the videotapes…” which occurred on 11/09/2005, not 2002.
There is a really weird problem with this. The CIA discussed destroying the tapes at least as early as 9/6/2002 (that’s a “2”), but almost completely dropped the matter in 12/2002 (probably because of the IG investigation). Exactly three years later, in the Fall of 2005, the discussion comes back up. I’m betting that some of the 11/2005 emails have attachments from 11/2002. “2” and “5” are digits that are easy to misread, especially when you are expecting the other. Trying to sort out where there are mistakes is pretty frustrating. Usually when the CIA makes mistakes in their FOIA stuff, it helps us.
Two possibilities on the destruction first, proposal later. First, you could have a case of some lawyers not knowing that the proposal had been carried out. Or, you might need to parse the description a little differently (hey, you can copy and paste text from these things. Woot!):
That could mean that the cable discussed the proposal and we have no idea what the email was about.
A question for bmaz, or any of the other fine Legal Eagles here – please chime in for this NAL.
What is the difference between an attorney-client privilege FOIA exemption for the ACLU’s document request and that same attorney-client privilege being exerted on those same documents with respect to Prosecutor John Durham’s investigation?
What I’m getting at is whether Prosecutor John Durham has reviewed the very same CIA documents regarding the torture videotape destruction that the CIA claims can be withheld from the ACLU under Exemption b(5) as an attorney-client privilege FOIA exemption.
It would seem to me that Prosecutor John Durham must have or should have been able to review all the CIA documents regarding the torture videotape destruction to determine whether there were criminal acts by CIA personnel described therein.
So back to my original question: when is an attorney-client privilege not an attorney-client privilege?
And secondly, why isn’t the ACLU asking this very same question? *g*
I don’t know the exact answer, but I assume Durham has access. And my guess is the ACLU is trying.
So attorney-client privilege is only for shielding stuff from us serfs.
Serfing sure has its privileges. *g*
Looks like the ACLU is on a serfin’ safari with regard to the FOIA docs.
That’s a really interesting question and it impacts pretty strongly on the validity of the Durham investigation and any “Blackwater/Nisoor” kinds of issues that would attach.
Access under the FOIA is statutory as a result it can be pretty different than what you would be able to access in an appropriate civil or criminal case under judicial process (assuming the existence of a fictional DOJ that doesn’t just destroy evidence that is already subject to judicial process). But FOIA exemption b(5) exempts docs that would be privileged from civil discovery in a lawsuit, so the “extent” of attorney/client privilege under FOIA should be the same as atty/client privilege in a civil action.
You have a special wrinkle here, though, in that with the IG – noncriminal investigation, you will have a lot of people who may have given inculpatory statements and information that they may claim cannot be used against them or others re: the actions at issue, bc of the manner in which they were obtained. The use of the information is different from the discoverability of the info, though. And if someone were to claim, on the on hand, that statements were given under “coercion” then, imo, they’d sure have a helluva time also arguing atty/client privilege with respect to those statement.
I’m not sure I’ve said that clearly, but if DOJ has info that was obtained in connection with the IG investigation I think they have to fish or cut bait on some information as to whether it was acquired in a quasi-adversarial setting or in an atty-client privilege setting. Like a witness statement taken by an atty vs. an atty’s interaction with their direct client. Now, what makes for the even more interesting overlay is that DOJ and Exec Branch lawyers separate and apart from the IG investigation were also directly providing counsel to the “witnesses” as well. So it’s like having a law firm that is both representing the witness who is having their statement taken and the plaintiff who is looking for information to use against the witness’ principals and also representing the principals.
This came out a bit in the Libby trial, although in a much less direct manner. As you saw there, in general the court is going to “align” all the gov parties as being on the “same side.” So even where investigations are going on into wrongdoing, if DOJ is handling that as in part an intra-agency investigation vs. a criminal investigation, it is going to get access to things that it would not have access to (without judicial process at least) in a criminal proceeding and it is going to be able to get information from and statements from people who would be under no compunction to provide that info if it was being sought in a criminal investigation (under the 5th, atty client priv, or other exemptions).
So with the IG investigation you have this compilation of info, including memos not prepared for that investigation but turned over in connection with it, and it is info that might not have been readily given to a criminal investigator. You have a really messy situation as to who are clients, where atty-client privilege lies, what is work product, etc. Then you trot out an “in-house” DOJ lawyer and say – hey, we’ll have him “investigate.” Well, if you turn over to him things that would not have been easily available to him in a criminal setting bc they were memos from a (DOJ) lawyer to his “client” or an Exec branch lawyer (CIA) to their “client” or statements and info given in connection with an internal investigation where statements may have been given under the understanding of protections attaching – then you have some complicated (factually and legally) issues.
Fitzgerald tried to make the point that he should be re-aligned, even though he was in-house DOJ, as separate from the Exec Branch bc he got most of what he was requesting in response to subpoenas etc. and in connection with what was clearly a criminal investigation and it was kind of agreed. Here, though, where you had so much “secret” but non-criminal inter and intra agency “investigations” and so much of the criminal documentation actually prepared by DOJ (imagine, for example, if instead of asking Addington Libby has received an OLC memo authorizing, secretly, a violation of the IIPA under the President’s war powers) it’s going to be a nightmare to have an in-house DOJ investigator (who is also subject to all the determinations of DOJ) pursue anything. So likely he does have things that are not being given to ACLU under the claim of atty-client privilege (although lots of things have multiple exemptions asserted) but that isn’t necessarily a good thing vis a vis a criminal case coming together.
On the other hand, the pretense that he’s doing something allows for the other FOIA exemptions (pending criminal investigation, interference with criminal investigation, etc.) to attach. I’d really love to see ACLU challenge by asserting that Durham can’t be needing docs for a criminal investigation bc there are too many conflicts for an in-house DOJ lawyer to pursue such an investigation and he is not able to act as an independent criminal investigator given the degree to which DOJ offices superior in authority to his are involved. Just to get DOJ on the record under oath filing in court saying that Durham and DOJ “can to” go after all these people to whom DOJ gave advice and absolution on torture.
If DOJ, with all its knowledge and assistance in torture, never put out a lit hold then how can DOJ investigate the destruction of docs that it carefully never advised anyone to retain?
Why bother since the statute will run before that line of attack can be litigated out, thus obviating, or at least materially altering, the foundation for assertion?
O/T
Schakowsky Prepares Legislation to Ban Blackwater – 1 day ago
As multiple scandals involving Blackwater continue to emerge almost daily, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on …
truthout – 5 related articles »
Schakowsky Prepares Legislation to Ban Blackwater | CommonDreams.orgJan 14, 2010 … Schakowsky says Blackwater has “severely damaged the credibility and security of our military and harmed our relationship with other …
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/14-4 – 10 hours ago
How is Schakowsky going to deal with the problem of Blackwater simply re-emerging as something else that sounds very different, like oh, “Xe” or whatever?
Bob in AZ
On earlier threaqds, I asked Jeff Kaye if he was aware if Blackwater had ever been reported to have been involved in actual torture.
(The earliest date I was able to find Blackwater involvement was in Afghanistan in 2001.)
He replied he had not seen or heard of that.
If I am not mistaken, that exchange was BEFORE Prince outed himself and Blackwateras being CIA operatives.
As such, I now reiterate, could Blackwater have been contractee torturers,and possibly have been on these tapes? Just sayin’.
Gitcheegumee, that thread was from this EW posting in earlier December.
I will hold by my assertion back then, that I have no evidence of Blackwater being involved in torture. Their uncovering as CIA operatives may make such activities more or less possible, but it’s only speculation.
Blackwater is not the only contractor on the block. As far as involvement in torture, we have CACI and Titan at Abu Ghraib, and in various locations Mitchell-Jessen & Associates (which includes, as I’ve documented, links to Randall Spivey’s RS Consulting and David Ayers of the big contractor for SERE kinds of interrogators, Tate, Inc.).
The focus on Blackwater doesn’t allow much room to consider the role of others. I’d recommend before going off on a possible wild goose chase trying to link Blackwater to torture (they already have enough crimes on their plate, including murder), that one’s investigatory skills could be put to use following up on those actors that have already been implicated. Unfortunately, for instance, no one — except Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele at Spokesman Review, and Sheri Fink at ProPublica — has followed up Mitchell and Jessen’s links to Spivey and Ayers. Hm… could this be because, for one thing, Spivey sits in with new players including former big wigs from the FBI, or that Ayers is still a huge contractor for JPRA? Just askin.’ Nice if someone else would follow up on that. Maybe we’d learn more about the torture program that way.
Jeff, thank you for the link to the original comments.
And I fully agree that there are other contractee entities that have been instrumental in these torture issues at hand that have gone underreported.
However, I do not recall any of the other firms stating that they were CIA operatives,as has Blackwater.
It is in this respect that I was ruminating about a possiblity, not a probabilty.
Asking does not equal accusing.
BTW, I think that Propublica is a national treasure,as well as Sheri Fink.
Now THAT’S some old school reportin’!
BTW,I came across another investigative site called WhoWhatWhy.
Some good stuff,there,too.
Somewhat offtopic. Saw today a generic hiring notification bulletin re: one of the people who served as bushco unitary executive counsel in some contempt of congress matters. While reading thru the instant vaughn index which is topic of this working thread, I was interested to see the thoroughness in a nearby timeline. Re @19, some of the exceptions to ac priv certainly appear to fit the nebulous region of unitary exec hypotheses.
Another legal question for bmaz, or any of the other fine Legal Eagles here – again, please chime in for this NAL.
In reviewing these CIA documents, it occurs to me that the FOIA exemptions claimed by the government have been much sabotaged over time to almost render the rationale behind FOIA null and void.
One example that comes to mind is the government’s seeming ability to shield any and all individual government folks from actually being “named”.
Here’s a very good example from Document 75 on page 65 of “Vaughn index of electronic documents relating to the reasons or people behind CIA’s destruction of 92 videotapes, Part 4 (1/08/2010)” (real link here for the 76 page PDF):
(My Bold)
In this particular instance, why is the government allowed to refuse to identify those “presidential advisors” and thereby conclusively affirming that the FOIA exemption claimed is legit?
How is that that FOIA has been so degraded that the ACLU can not insist that “presidential advisors” must be positively and conclusively identified by name to ensure that the FOIA exemption is as claimed?
As far as the ACLU (and we) know, those “presidential advisors” might be the White House janitorial staff, and have no right to any FOIA exemption at all.
And yes, the fact that Document 75 concerns the 11/10/2005 communications between CIA officers and anonymous Presidential Advisors regarding the destruction of the CIA’s torture videotapes the day after they were destroyed has nothing whatsoever to do with my question. *g*
Because they are the government and you are not.
Let me rephrase that, hell I don’t know….
I’d love to see the ACLU legally pursuing this issue!
Naming the names of these anonymous Presidential Advisors seems like a right under their FOIA requests that has been overlooked.
I’d bet that they’d have a strong case that while the presidential communications may themselves be exempt under FOIA, the names of the presidential advisors have no such exemption status.
As is: “We may not have a right to know what was said, but we sure as hell have a right to know who said it!”
@24
Excellent question-worthy of a diary,Bob!
Here’s an interesting interview with Scahill and Schakowsky:
“Blackwatergate” – Private Military Firm in Firestorm of …Jan 8, 2010 … Now, we’re not sure what the role was of the Blackwater guys there. That’s what Representative Schakowsky is investigating right now. …
http://www.democracynow.org/…/blackwatergate_private_military_firm_in_firestorm
Gitcheegumee, the link you provided gave me a 404 error. I googled and found what I think is the same article here: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/8/blackwatergate_private_military_firm_in_firestorm
Thought I’d leave the link for those who may have the problem I was having. Thnx.
I remember when Ritter got in trouble for this the first time and wondered, at the time, if he was being Spitzered. Now, I’m afraid, it’s much more likely that he’ll be swallowed, instead.
tee hee
O/T:
For those interested in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), I’ve added a news summary to my Seminal diary about the FCIC proceedings.
Bob in AZ
O/T, or back to Sunstein, Greenwald has an article up about it over at salon.com. Here’s the last paragraph:
“So Sunstein isn’t calling right now for proposals (1) and (2) — having Government “ban conspiracy theorizing” or “impose some kind of tax on those who” do it — but he says “each will have a place under imaginable conditions.” I’d love to know the “conditions” under which the government-enforced banning of conspiracy theories or the imposition of taxes on those who advocate them will “have a place.” That would require, at a bare minumum, a repeal of the First Amendment. Anyone who believes this should, for that reason alone, be barred from any meaningful government position.”
Link.
WASHINGTON — Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who pioneered efforts to design regulation around the ways people behave, will be named the Obama administration’s regulatory czar, a transition official said Wednesday.
Mr. Sunstein, a friend of President-elect Barack Obama from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school, will mark a sharp departure for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Although obscure, the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.
Mr. Sunstein, a prolific academic with wide-ranging interests, may be best known for advancing a field known as “law and behavioral economics” that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave. The theory builds on earlier approaches developed at the University of Chicago law school that sought to harmonize regulatory law with free-market economics. Although widely embraced by conservatives, critics said it failed to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Mr. Sunstein said Mr. Obama was intrigued by “law and behavioral economics” as an approach to regulation that would avoid ideological extremes.Mr. Obama believes in “doing law in a way that’s realistically based on human behavior,” Mr. Sunstein said. “He’s a University of Chicago Democrat, so he’s very attuned to the virtue of free markets and the risks of free-market regulation. He’s not an old-style Democrat who’s excited about regulations” for their own sake.
<strong>Last year, Mr. Sunstein joined the Harvard faculty, where his wife, Samantha Power, also teaches. Ms. Power was a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Obama who was forced off the campaign after she called Sen. Hillary Clinton a “monster.” Mrs. Clinton has been nominated to be Mr. Obama’s secretary of state.</stro
WSJ -link to follow
Obama’s Regulatory Czar Likely to Set a New Tone – WSJ.comJan 8, 2009 … Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein will be named the Obama administration’s … where his wife, Samantha Power, also teaches. …
online.wsj.com/article/SB123138051682263203.html – Cached – Similar
Is this the correct link, Gitcheegumee? Hope so.
Link.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
@54
Indeed it is, my mensch.TY.
I had read about Sunnstein’s avant garde ideas last year, but in light of current events, it certainly takes on a different tone and tenor.
Curious indeed, in light of Obama campaigning on increased transparency.
Because there were also deaths. I’d also have to think that with respect to things like innocent men, women or children held statutes might be tolled while they were under the impediment of being held in blacksites or at GITMO (maybe not) or while children were under the age of majority and being disappeared or if they were coerced into not pursuing claims – and IIRC all released persons were required, in order to obtain releases, to “sign off” on something saying they had not been tortured and would not pursue claims for torture. Anyway, fwiw, I think that even if Holder weren’t just running Durham up the flagpole as a diversionary tactic, and even if he had wanted to do an investigation, he’s self-created a completely unworkable situation with the appointments path he’s pursued.
I wonder if there’s any way for the ACLU, with its FOIA request and the Durham holdback responses to date, to get an answer to an interrogatory on the statutes of limitation that apply to the possible criminal charges in the “pending criminal investigation” and/or interference with criminal investigation FOIA responses ?
I would also like to see Gov have to fish or cut bait on its atty/client and work product types of assertions as to whow the client was/is and whether those who gave interviews and statements were or were not deemed to be adverse parties to DOJ and whether or not the “internal” investigations have in any way resulted in statements being obtained that would be problematic with respect to a subsequent criminal investigation.
Not that we’ll ever know, or that they wouldn’t be able to squirm out even if the questions were asked, but sometimes you accomplish something just by asking.
Unlikely; that would, I assume, all be protectable under prosecutorial discretion and work product.