Follow The Bouncing Ball

This is hilarious:

The NYT fronts word that lawyers at the CIA's clandestine branch approved the destruction of the tapes, which had hundreds of hours of footage. (The WP says most are of a detainee alone in his cell.) A former senior official tells the NYT that there had been discussions about the tapes with different agencies for two years, and both White House and Justice Department lawyers had advised against destroying the tapes. But since they weren't ever given a direct decision, the head of the clandestine branch decided to go ahead with their destruction after a lawyer within the same department said he had the proper authority. The top CIA lawyer was not asked to approve the move, which several former officials said was more than a little surprising.

Now everyone but some obscure department head can claim they "don't know nuthin' about the birthin' of no babies".