At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.
Whether this will result in any ramifications is unclear. One of the difficult things about the issue of whether the concealment of the tapes and then their destruction violated any court orders is that judges didn’t know that they existed and so couldn’t ask for them. So far, government lawyers have successfully run the gauntlet, but it’s not over yet.