Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has called for an investigation into the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes (background here):

Today U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent the attached letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking him to open an official investigation to determine whether the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes violates the law.

He wrote: "I urge you to investigate whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence fiom official proceedings violated the law. . . CIA Director Hayden asserts that the videotapes were destroyed 'in line with the law.' However, it is the Justice Department's role to determine whether the law was violated."

You can read his letter here (pdf). Also check out Marcy (Empty Wheel) and Marty Lederman at Balkanization on Michael Hayden's letter

The battle between Huffington Post and Mike Huckabee is ongoing.

• Round 1: Murray Waas exposes Huckabee in Huffpo.

• Round 2: The Huckabee campaign posts a response by a former aide attacking HuffPo .

• Round 3: Arianna jumps in, defending Huffpo and Waas.

Our contributions (and slightly different take from all of them to date:)

• Huckabee and Wayne Dumond: Interview With Dumond's Attorney

• Mike Huckabee's Tangled Web

Stay tuned, I hear there's more to come.

The German Government has long been opposed to Scientology which it regards as a money-making cult rather than a religion.

Now a large group of German government ministers has declared Scientology "incompatible with the Constitution."

One very controversial component of Scientology is its drug treatment program, Narconon. Tom Cruise, in an interview with Der Speigel quoted here, called it "only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world."

Cruise: I'm a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It's called Narconon.

SPIEGEL: That's not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo science.

Cruise: You don't understand what I am saying. It's a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period.

SPIEGEL: With all due respect, we doubt that.

So do many others.

The New York Daily News reports that Judith Nathan received security from the NYPD for months before the affair went public.

Judith Nathan got taxpayer-funded chauffeur services from the NYPD earlier than previously disclosed - even before her affair with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani was revealed, witnesses and sources tell the Daily News.

"It went on for months before the affair was public," said Lee Degenstein, 52, a retired Smith Barney vice president who formerly lived at 200 E. 94th St., Nathan's old building.

In January, 2001, Bernie Kerik said Judith received protection as a result of a threat in December, 2000. The affair became public in May. Now, the neighbors say she received sporadic protection since early in 2000.

Former neighbors of Nathan's, as well as a law enforcement source, describe a full-scale valet service at Nathan's beck and call well before the affair became public.

The Giuliani campaign now revises its story.

They said Nathan had received previously undisclosed "threats" earlier in 2000, and that protection was provided at those times.

One question: How could she need protection because of a threat before she was a public figure or publicly identified as the Mayor's girlfriend?

The New York Times has learned the CIA destroyed interrogation tapes of two al-Qaeda detainees.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

Both the Judge in the Moussaoui case and the 9/11 Commission had requested the tapes:

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

The C.I.A. confirmed the destruction today when the Times informed the agency it would be publishing an article about the tapes tomorrow.

The CIA defends its actions but destruction of evidence and withholding information about the existence of evidence is a serious no-no. This could be a significant story. [More...]

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is taking a lot of heat these days over his clemency decisions while Governor -- particularly that of Wayne Dumond. Huckabee's latest statement, released today, is here.

This is a complicated tale. For the facts of the Dumond - Ashley Stevens rape case, and why Huckabee might have had doubts about Dumond's guilt, based on problems with the scientific evidence and Stevens' identification of Dumond, there's no better source than the appellate court opinions on the case. Here are four of them:

• January, 1988
• January, 1989
• September, 1989
• August, 1990

TalkLeft contributor Last Night in Little Rock also known as John Wesley Hall, was Wayne Dumond's post-conviction attorney. In addition to seeking post-conviction relief in the state courts, John represented Dumond in his federal habeas actions, the pre-Huckabee clemency request and in the civil case against Sheriff Coolidge Conlee, who displayed Dumond's castrated testicles on a jar on his desk. John obtained a $150,000.00 verdict for Dumond for the tort of outrage. The Sheriff later died in prison while serving his own 20 year sentence for extortion, gambling and other crimes. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9/26/96, available on Lexis.com)

An interview with John about Dumond's sentence commutation and clemency, the roles of former Lt. Gov. Tucker, Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee, Dumond's castration and his thoughts on Dumond's original rape conviction, from evidentiary doubts to the sentence disparity, follows:

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake, 12/06/07]

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive....

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is on the ropes after his repeated denials that he recommended parole for Arkansas rapist and murderer Wayne Dumond. For background on the Wayne Dumond case, check out Byron York's article today at the National Review.

It began in September 1984, when Dumond, a 35-year-old handyman, kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old high-school cheerleader in the small eastern-Arkansas town of Forrest City. Dumond was allowed to remain free on bond while awaiting trial, and in March 1985 two masked men entered his house, tied him up with fishing line, and castrated him. People were stunned; the case, already notorious, became much more so. And that was before the local sheriff, a rather colorful man named Coolidge Conlee, displayed Dumond’s severed testicles in a jar of formaldehyde on his desk in the St. Francis County building. Amid tons of publicity, Dumond was found guilty and sentenced to life plus 20 years.

The case took on a political coloring when it became known that the victim was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. After conviction, Dumond, who claimed he was innocent, asked Clinton for clemency. Clinton declined.

For details about what Huckabee knew about Dumond and when he knew it, see Murray Waas' article at the Huffington Post yesterday. Also, here's a detailed chronology (pdf) of events concerning the case.

York interviewed Huckabee last August about his role in Dumond's release. [More...]

I've got early court today, leaving at 7:30 a.m. Big Tent Democrat is taking a few weeks off and won't be posting much. So, I hope you'll all contribute some comments.

Check out my post on Mike Huckabee and Wayne Dumond over at Firedoglake, Mike Huckabee's Tangled Web.

I'll be back at some point today.

Update: Stop back this afternoon if you'd like to read an interview with LNIR, John Wesley Hall, Wayne Dumond's attorney, about the case, Huckabee, Tucker and Clinton. I have some final edits to do before I post it.

Prison Nation sets another record:

About one in every 31 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail or on supervised release at the end of last year, the Department of Justice reported yesterday. An estimated 2.38 million people were incarcerated in state and federal facilities, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2005, while a record 5 million people were on parole or probation, an increase of 1.8 percent.

The racial disparity that TalkLeft highlighted in this story is confirmed by the statistics:

In several states, incarceration rates for blacks were more than 10 times the rate of whites. In Iowa, for example, blacks were imprisoned at 13.6 times the rate of whites, according to an analysis of the data by the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group.

A California judge today sentenced Kiefer Sutherland to 48 days in jail on his 4th D.U.I. arrest. It wasn't a surprise, since that's what his plea agreement called for.

He asked to start serving the sentence immediately and will be at the Glendale City Jail.

He must serve all 48 days in jail. Under the terms of his plea, he also must serve 60 months probation, pay a $510 fine, enroll in an 18-month alcohol-education class and attend weekly alcohol-therapy sessions for six months, [Asst. City Attorney]Jeffries said.

A new ABC News poll shows Hillary Clinton leading in New Hampshire.

Hillary Clinton is holding off Barack Obama in New Hampshire with a single-digit but seemingly solid lead, scoring more committed and enthusiastic support, higher trust to handle pressing issues and broad margins on leadership, experience and electability.

The chart and numbers are here. (pdf).

Among likely voters in the Democratic primary, Clinton has 35 percent support, Obama 29 percent, John Edwards 17 percent and Bill Richardson 10 percent, with others in the low single digits.

As to why Hillary's support is considered "solid" and "more reliable":

Among those who've definitely decided on their candidate, she leads Obama by a wide 43-28 percent; and among the most enthusiastic likely voters she leads him by 45-24 percent.

Hillary also leads on six of the seven issues polled and has the largest advantage on health care.

A federal judge has ruled the DNC can exclude Florida delegates from the convention as a penalty for moving up their primary date.

[U.S. District Court] Judge Robert Hinkle said that political parties have a First Amendment right to set their own rules and enforce them. The national party did that, which means that Florida will not have a say in picking the Democratic nominee.

Florida's set its primary for January 29 even though the rules don't allow them before February 5, so as to maintain the importance of the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Two other states, Nevada and South Carolina, are also allowed early primaries "to add geographic and racial and ethnic diversity."