Source informed CBS that CIA destroyed videos to avoid prosecution.

Thinkprogress:


Last night on the CBS Evening News, national security correspondent David Martin reported that a “well-informed source” informed the network that the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos to “avoid criminal prosecution.”

On Thursday, in a memo to CIA employees, Director Michael Hayden claimed that the videotapes were destroyed because they “posed a serious security risk“:

Beyond their lack of intelligence value — as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels — and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a serious security risk. Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qa’ida and its sympathizers.
CBS’s Martin reported, however, that a high-level anonymous source says that’s not true:

A well-informed source tells CBS News the videotapes of the interrogation of two high-level al Qaeda operatives were destroyed to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution.

UPDATE: The ACLU is calling on Attorney General Mukasey to appoint an independent counsel to investigate, and if appropriate, prosecute any potential criminal activity.

UPDATE II: The Justice Department and CIA announced they will conduct a joint preliminary inquiry into the agency’s destruction of videotapes. The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.