Then-CIA Director Michael Hayden preempted The New York Times' planned report on the interrogation tapes by sending CIA employees a letter describing the tapes and stating they had been destroyed 'in the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them.'
Notes on verification
Multiple independent contemporaneous sources (Washington Post, CNN, NBC, NPR) corroborate the exact quote, the timing relative to the NYT report, and Hayden's role as CIA Director. [tier=silver indep_score=0.7 clusters=4 claim_tier=exceptional]
Sources
- The Senate Torture Report and Investigative Journalism (seed:military_and_intelligence)
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120601689_pf.html (corroboration)
- https://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/12/06/cia.videotapes/ (corroboration)
- https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22139312 (corroboration)
- https://www.npr.org/2007/12/07/17021550/timeline-cia-and-interrogation-videotapes (corroboration)