Mukasey rejects congressional request on CIA probe

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday rejected a congressional request for information about a Justice Department probe into the CIA's destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.

The Democratic-led Congress has begun its own investigations of last week's disclosure that the CIA destroyed some tapes in 2005, with critics charging a possible cover-up of illegal torture.

In refusing to release information that federal investigators have dug up so far, Mukasey wrote: "The department has a long-standing policy of declining to provide non-public information about pending matters."

"This policy is based in part on our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence," Mukasey added in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's ranking Republican.

The senators asked Mukasey in a letter this week what the Justice Department had known about the CIA videotapes and whether attorneys for the department had viewed the videotapes, offered advice about their destruction or discussed them with the White House.

Leahy expressed disappointment in Mukasey's refusal to provide information and promised that his committee would pursue the matter.

"This committee needs to fully understand whether the government used cruel interrogation techniques and torture, contrary to our basic values," Leahy said in a statement.

"I will ask Attorney General Mukasey -- in public and on the record -- more about the department's knowledge of and role in the existence and destruction of these videotapes at the committee's next oversight hearing, which I intend to call early next year," Leahy said.