Attorney General Michael runescape Mukasey announced that he was appointing John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the investigation of a case that has challenged runescape money the Bush administration's controversial handling of terrorism suspects. The CIA acknowledged runescape gold last month that in 2005 it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. The 百度排名 acknowledgment sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by Justice into whether the CIA violated any laws or obstructed congressional inquiries such as buy runescape money the one led by the Sept. 11 Commission. "The Department's National runescape.com Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, buy runescape gold and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday. Durham, who has served runescape cheat 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 runescape tip investigation that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison. "Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI 百度排名 agent or otherwise," Durham said in 2002 after Connolly's conviction. Mukasey made the move wow after prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., removed themselves from the case. world of warcraft CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry, wow gold also removed himself. "The CIA will of course cooperate buy wow gold fully with this investigation as it has with the others into this matter," agency spokesman cheap wow gold Mark Mansfield said. Mukasey named Durham 百度推广 the acting U.S. attorney on the case, a designation the Justice Department frequently makes when top prosecutors take themselves off a case. He runescape will not serve as a special prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who operated autonomously while investigating runescape money the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity. "The Justice Department runescape gold went out and got somebody with complete independence and integrity," said former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, buy runescape money who worked with Durham. "No politics whatsoever. It's going to be completely by the book and he's going to let the buy runescape gold chips fall where they may." The CIA already has runescape cheats agreed to open its files to congressional investigators, who have begun reviewing documents at the agency's Virginia runescape tips headquarters. The House Intelligence Committee has ordered Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed the google排名 tapes be destroyed, to appear at a hearing Jan. 16. Rodriguez's attorney, runescape Robert S. Bennett, had no comment. Durham first gained runescape money national prominence following the 1989 murder of Mafia underboss William Grasso, which led to one of the biggest mob takedowns in U.S history. He then runescape money turned to Connecticut street gangs, winning dozens of convictions, putting some gang runescape gold leaders in jail for life. He supervised the investigation buy runescape money that sent former Republican Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and several members of his administration to prison buy runescape gold on corruption charges. "He'll suck the runescape.com political air right out of the investigation and just go after the facts," said Mike Clark, a retired FBI agent who investigated Rowland. "He's going to runescape items do it his way and just keep digging." In June 2005, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, who was overseeing a case in google左侧排名 which U.S.-held terror suspects were challenging their detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ordered the Bush administration runescape to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now at the runescape money United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay." Five months later, the runescape gold CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department google排名服务 has argued to Kennedy that the videos weren't covered by his order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, buy runescape money not at Guantanamo Bay. The tapes' destruction has buy runescape gold riled members of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Times, commission www.runescape.com chairmen Tom Keane and Lee Hamilton accused the CIA of failing to respond to requests for information about the 9/11 runescape.com plot. Anyone at the agency who knew about the tapes runescape items and failed to disclose them "obstructed our investigation," said Keane, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Hamilton, a former 百度推广 Democratic House member from Indiana. The CIA has asserted that dofus Keane and Hamilton's panel had not been specific enough in their requests and they should have asked for interrogation videos if that dofus is what they wanted. On Capitol Hill, the House maplestory mesos Intelligence Committee wants to know who authorized the tapes' destruction; who in the CIA, Justice Department and White House knew wow about it and when, and why Congress was not fully informed. The committee, which had threatened to subpoena the world of warcraft records if they do not get access, also wants to know exactly what was shown on the tapes. WASHINGTON - warcraft gold The Justice Department opened a full criminal investigation Wednesday into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, putting the politically charged probe in the hands of a mob-busting public wow gold corruption prosecutor with a reputation for being independent. Since leaving the buy wow gold White House shortly before Christmas, President Bush has not addressed the tapes' destruction. Before going to Camp David, cheap wow gold then his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush said he was confident that investigations by Congress and the Justice Department "will end up wow enabling us all to find out what exactly happened." He repeated his assertion that his "first recollection" of world of warcraft being told about the tapes and their destruction was when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed him on it in early December. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of warcraft gold the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Mukasey's announcement proved that lawmakers "were right to be concerned with possible obstruction of wow gold justice and obstruction of Congress." Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., buy wow gold also lauded Mukasey's decision to launch a criminal inquiry. "The rule of law requires no less," Kennedy said. "Those tapes may have been evidence of a crime, and their destruction cheap wow gold may have been a crime in itself." Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat runescape seeking his party's nomination for president, said a criminal investigation is no surprise, but suggested that Mukasey should remove himself from oversight of the investigation and appoint a special buy runescape money counsel "completely independent and free from political influence."