Feud escalates over CIA tape probes

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved Friday to delay congressional inquiries into the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes, saying the administration could not provide witnesses or documents without jeopardizing its own investigation of the CIA's actions.

Congressional leaders from both parties alleged that Justice is trying to block their investigation and vowed to press ahead with hearings.

Two letters from Justice and CIA officials to leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees intensified the conflict between the Bush administration and Congress, which is seeking to force current and former CIA leaders to testify as early as next week. The lawmakers want CIA officials to account for the decision to destroy tapes that depicted the use of harsh interrogation tactics on terrorism suspects.

The growing feud is the first major confrontation with Congress for new Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was narrowly confirmed last month amid controversy over his refusal to describe waterboarding — a severe interrogation tactic that simulates drowning — as torture.

Interrogation bill blocked in Senate

Senate Republicans blocked a bill Friday that would restrict the interrogation methods the CIA can use against terrorism suspects.

The legislation, part of a measure authorizing the government's intelligence activities for 2008, had been approved a day earlier by the House and sent to the Senate for what was supposed to be final action. The bill would require the CIA to adhere to the Army's field manual on interrogation, which bans waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.

Senate opponents of that provision, however, discovered a potentially fatal parliamentary flaw: The ban on harsh questioning had not been in the original versions of the intelligence bill passed by the House and Senate. Instead, it was a last-minute addition during negotiations between the two sides to write a compromise bill, a move that could violate Senate rules.

Voter-rights chief moved after remark

The Justice Department's voting-rights chief, who said voter-ID laws aren't a problem for blacks because they often die before old age, has been transferred to a new job, officials said Friday.

John Sanner, a longtime attorney in the department's Civil Rights Division, requested the move from the division's voting-rights office, Justice spokesman Peter Carr said. Tanner now works in the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, Carr said.

Also

New VA boss: The Senate confirmed retired Lt. Gen. James Peake, 63, a former Army surgeon general, as Veterans Affairs secretary Friday.

Abramoff probe: Republican environmental activist Italia Federici, who served as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's conduit to the top ranks of the Interior Department, was sentenced Friday to two months in a halfway house and four years' probation. She pleaded guilty in June to tax evasion and obstructing a Senate investigation.

Seattle Times news services