Justice Intensifies CIA Tape Inquiry

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department has elevated its inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes to a formal criminal investigation headed by a career federal prosecutor.

The announcement is the first indication that investigators have concluded on a preliminary basis that CIA officers, possibly along with other government officials, may have committed criminal acts in their handling of the tapes, which recorded the interrogations in 2002 of two operatives with al-Qaida and were destroyed in 2005.

The investigation and a probable grand jury inquiry will scrutinize the actions of some of the highest ranking current and former officials at the intelligence agency.

The tapes never were provided to the courts or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had requested all CIA documents related to al-Qaida prisoners in agency custody. The question of whether to destroy the tapes was for nearly three years the subject of deliberations among lawyers at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

On Wednesday, Justice Department officials declined to specify what crimes might be under investigation, but government lawyers have said the inquiry probably will focus on whether the destruction of the tapes involved criminal obstruction of justice and related false statements.

Mukasey assigned John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the criminal inquiry with the FBI. The appointment of a prosecutor from outside Washington was an unusual move, and it suggested that Mukasey wanted to give the investigation the appearance of an extra measure of independence.

Durham, whose title has been first assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, was not appointed as a special counsel in this case, a step sought by some congressional Democrats. He will have less-expansive authority than a special counsel and will report to the deputy attorney general rather than assume the powers of the attorney general, which he would have had as a special counsel.

Durham has spent years bringing cases against organized crime figures in Hartford, Conn., and in Boston. In legal circles he has the reputation of a tough, tight-lipped litigator who compiled a stellar track record against organized crime.

A CIA spokesman said the agency would cooperate fully with the Justice Department investigation.