Editorial | The CIA Tapes

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, January, 2008

The burning question in the Justice Department investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes harks back to what everyone wanted to know during Watergate: Who knew what, when? U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Wednesday took a good step toward restoring credibility to the Justice Department by naming a career prosecutor from outside of Washington to oversee the probe.

By all accounts, John H. Durham, a federal prosecutor from Connecticut, is a straight shooter. However, Mukasey should've gone further and appointed Durham as a special counsel, which would give him broader powers into the investigation. Durham's job now is to determine whether anyone at the CIA or elsewhere in the government committed criminal acts - such as obstruction of justice...