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Biden, Rockefeller Disagree on Need for Special Counsel in Case of Deleted CIA Tapes    [

    Biden Calls for Special Counsel to Investigate CIA
    CNN Political Ticker

    Saturday 09 December 2007

Joe Biden says the Justice Department needs to appoint a Special Counsel.

    Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, says the Justice Department needs to go further than it has, by calling for the appointment of Special Counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotapes that included the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

    "Under federal law, the Attorney General may appoint a Special Counsel to prosecute matters when he or she determines that an investigation by the Department itself would present a conflict of interest, or there are other extraordinary circumstances and it would be in the public interest to do so. I believe these conditions are met," the Democratic presidential hopeful said in a news release Sunday.

    "This is a White House that has sanctioned and pushed for the kind of interrogation techniques captured on those video tapes," Biden said. "This is a White House that was informed of the CIA's desire to destroy those tapes. Thus, it is possible this investigation could lead to the White House."

    On Saturday, a Department of Justice official announced the Justice Department and CIA will do a preliminary inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotapes taken during interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects.

    The announcement was made in a letter from Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein to the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo. Wainstein said the purpose of the probe will be to determine "whether further investigation is warranted."

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    Biden, Rockefeller Disagree on Need for Special Counsel in Case of Deleted CIA Tapes
    By Klaus Marre
    The Hill

    Sunday 09 December 2007

    The Democratic chairmen of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees are at odds over whether a special counsel should investigate the circumstances that led to the deletion of videotapes showing the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

    While Sen. Joe Biden (Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations panel, says it is necessary to put in place a special counsel to investigate, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said there is no need for such a move and that a congressional probe would be sufficient at this stage.

    "I think this is one case where it really does call for a special counsel," Biden said Sunday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The Delaware Democrat, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he believes the case of the deleted tapes "leads right into the White House.

    "There may be a legal and rational explanation, but I don't see any on the face of it," he added.

    Rockefeller, however, indicated that a congressional probe would be sufficient in the case.

    "I don't think there's a need for a special counsel, and I don't think there's a need for a special commission," Rockefeller said on CBS's Face the Nation. "It is the job of the Intelligence Committees to do that."

    Rockefeller was backed by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), who also appeared on the show.

    Democrats expressed outrage this week when news broke about the deletion of the tapes, claiming it is another case where the Bush administration views itself as above the law.

    However, Republicans have also raised questions.

    Surging GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee also criticized the destruction of the tapes.

    "When we start destroying documents, what are we destroying them for? Are we doing it for security purposes or to cover somebody's rear end?" the former Arkansas governor said on Fox News Sunday. "If we're covering somebody's rear end, we need to expose their rear end and kick their rear end for doing something that's against the best interest of the United States and the responsibility and the respectability of this country."