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Justice expands CIA tapes inquiry

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department opened a full criminal investigation Wednesday into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, putting it in the hands of a mob-busting public corruption prosecutor with a reputation for being independent.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that he was appointing John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the politically charged investigation of a case that has challenged the Bush administration's controversial handling of terrorism suspects.

The CIA acknowledged last month that in 2005 it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. The acknowledgment sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by the Justice Department into whether the CIA violated any laws or obstructed congressional inquiries such as the one led by the Sept. 11 Commission.

"The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.

Durham, who has served with the Justice Department for 25 years, has a reputation as one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors. He was appointed to investigate the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston, an investigation that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison.

"Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise," Durham said in 2002 after Connolly's conviction.

Mukasey made the move after prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., removed themselves from the case. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry, also removed himself.

"The CIA will of course cooperate fully with this investigation as it has with the others into this matter," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

Mukasey named Durham the acting U.S. attorney on the case, a designation the Justice Department frequently makes when top prosecutors take themselves off a case. He will not serve as a special prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who operated autonomously while investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.

John Durham

-Named Wednesday acting U.S. attorney in the Justice Department's full criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes.

- A federal prosecutor in Connecticut, he has served with the Justice Department for 25 years.

- First gained national prominence after the 1989 murder of Mafia underboss William Grasso, which led to one of the biggest mob takedowns in U.S. history.

- He then turned to Connecticut street gangs, winning dozens of convictions, putting some gang leaders in jail for life.

- He was appointed to investigate the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston, an investigation that sent former FBI Agent John Connolly to prison in 2002.

- He supervised the investigation that sent former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican, to prison on corruption charges in 2005.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 01:44:03]