Well, It Certainly Sounds Like An Independent Investigation

Michael Mukasey taps a career prosecutor to investigate the destruction of the torture tapes:

The CIA acknowledged last month that it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. The acknowledgment sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by Justice.

"The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.

Mukasey named John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the case.

Durham apparently went up against the FBI and sent a bunch of public officials in Connecticut to prison, so he's not afraid of taking on the government. He's basically acting as the US Attorney for eastern Virginia because that USA, who would normally have jurisdiction over the CIA, recused himself. And the head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, has also recused himself, along with John Helgerson, the CIA Inspector General.

This has all the earmarks of a legitimate independent investigation, but with the Bush Administration nothing is assured.

UPDATE: It's interesting that this is coming out on a day when 9/11 Commission co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton reiterated in the New York Times that the CIA stonewalled their investigation and lied to their commission.

UPDATE II: Conyers seems unhappy, wanted a special counsel and thinks the scope of the investigation is too limited. I have to agree to an extent that the Justice Department has defaulted on its ability to independently investigate the White House. So the Congress should engage in a parallel probe.