Attorneys demand preservation of evidence of detainee torture

Hayden is to provide similarly secret testimony to the House intelligence panel on Wednesday.

The obvious question raised by these hearings is why the Democratic congressional leaders chose to shield the CIA from public scrutiny and why they preferred to keep their own comments and questions secret from the American people.

Hayden and other intelligence officials have frequently been called to testify on matters such as the National Security Agency’s secret domestic spying operation, with the intelligence committee convening in open session to air the issues and then going into closed session for questions that the CIA or other agencies insist must remain classified.

In the case of the torture tapes, however, it has already become clear that not only are the CIA, the Justice Department and the White House facing damning revelations and potential criminal inquiries, but leading Democrats themselves were well aware of both the methods of torture used as well as the subsequent destruction of evidence.

The fact that in 2005 the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation and torture of two men detained in the agency’s secret prison network was revealed last week by the New York Times and confirmed by Hayden