Posted Apr 16, 2010 7:35 AM CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A decision by a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency to destroy 92 videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects was done without the knowledge or assent of two top lawyers--White House counsel Harriet Miers and CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo, according to newly released e-mails.

The lawyers were "upset" and "livid" about the decision, the e-mails say.

Jose Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the CIA’s clandestine service, ordered the tapes’ destruction despite a 2004 court order to preserve documents in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The e-mail was released to the ACLU under a freedom of information request, and the group then gave the documents to the media. The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.), the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press all had stories.

The e-mails suggest that then-CIA director Porter Goss approved of the decision, although there is no indication he knew of the destruction before it occurred, the Post says. Intelligence officials told the Times that Goss did not agree to the tape’s destruction and he was upset that neither he nor Rizzo were consulted.

The e-mails detail the reaction by Rizzo and Miers.

"Rizzo does not think this is likely to just go away," a CIA official wrote a day after the tapes were destroyed, according to the Wall Street Journal account.

''Rizzo is clearly upset because he was on the hook to notify Harriet Miers of the status of the tapes because it was she who had asked to be advised before any action was taken,” one e-mail said, according to AP.

According to the e-mail, Miers was "livid” when she learned the tapes were destroyed.

The Times cites a comment by an “American official familiar with the matter” who cautioned that the e-mails were merely the account of one unnamed CIA official. “It’s a little risky to draw cosmic conclusions from something like that,” he told the newspaper.

ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner sees the documents as “further evidence that senior CIA officials were willing to risk being prosecuted for obstruction of justice in order to avoid being prosecuted for torture.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham is leading a Justice Department investigation into the destruction of the tapes and the actions of CIA interrogators.