Rodriguez Says No Immunity, No Testimony

With a full-blown criminal investigation in the works, Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who ordered the destruction of the torture tapes, says, via his lawyer Bob Bennett, that he’s not testifying about it to Congress without immunity. He’d been scheduled to speak to the House intelligence committee next week as part of their investigation.

If the committee did give him immunity, it could potentially compromise the criminal investigation. If they didn’t, he’d probably spend most of his time pleading the Fifth. Bennett first signaled this course last month, when he warned that Rodriguez wouldn’t cooperate with a “witch hunt.”

The Washington Post adds that criminal investigators haven’t given him access to records about the destruction and that “most defense attorneys would advise a client against testifying or cooperating with a congressional investigation without access to such documents.”