One of the important players in developing the Bush administration’s interrogation program was CIA General Counsel John Rizzo. Rizzo was part of a group of Bush administration lawyers that pushed for the authorization of torture. So what is Rizzo doing now? Marcy Wheeler notes that he is still serving as acting general counsel at the CIA:

On April 16, President Obama nominated attorney Stephen Preston, although he has not yet been approved by the Senate. Rizzo was never able to move beyond his acting title and become the agency’s general counsel; the White House had to withdraw his nomination because of protests from key senators and human rights groups.

At the American Bar Association’s conference on national security yesterday, CIA senior deputy general counsel John Rizzo recommended that President-elect Barack Obama “address immediately detainee issues at Guantanamo Bay and in the CIA’s interrogation program.” Rizzo said that the agency’s interrogation and detainee program needs “urgent” attention:

The CIA detention and interrogation program, he said, is just as urgent. “That’s going to have to be dealt with immediately,” Rizzo said. “We do not have the luxury to wait and muddle through.” He knows how tough the issue is–his involvement in helping the CIA construct the program earned him opposition in Congress that killed his nomination to be the CIA’s general counsel.

The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman did not report whether Rizzo said anything specific about how the program needs to be “dealt” with. This information would be important since, as Gorman notes, Rizzo controversially helped construct the program that pushed the boundaries of torture.

In 2002, while serving as an acting general counsel, Rizzo approved of a memo drafted by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that stretched the definition of torture in order to make it permissible for use in the course of an interrogation. Asked at a June 2007 confirmation hearing if he “should have objected at the time” to Bybee’s definition of torture, Rizzo replied, “I can’t say I should have objected at the time.” Watch it:

Rizzo’s nomination was withdrawn by the White House in Sept. 2007 after key senators and human rights and advocacy groups protested his stubborn “>refusal to renounce his role in crafting the Bush administration’s torture policies.

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed that, in 2002, the CIA videotaped its own officials administering harsh interrogation tactics against two al Qaeda operatives, but three years later, destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the incidents. One of the videotapes may have contained evidence of an al Qaeda operative being waterboarded.

The Times reports the destruction of the tapes occurred in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal and “CIA officers became concerned about a possible leak of the videos and photos.” In his agency’s defense, CIA Director Michael Hayden said, “What matters here is that it was done in line with the law.” As proof, he cited internal CIA legal decisions:

The decision to destroy the tapes was made within CIA itself. [...]

As part of the rigorous review that has defined the detention program, the Office of General Counsel examined the tapes and determined that they showed lawful methods of questioning.

The man in charge of this “rigorous review”? John Rizzo — the Acting General Counsel of the CIA. Recall, Rizzo was nominated by President Bush last year to become CIA General Counsel. At his confirmation hearings, Rizzo unapologetically stood behind his approval of the “Bybee memo,” which defined torture as “serious physical injury, such as organ failure.” When asked whether he still agreed with that decision, Rizzo answered, “I honestly — I can’t say I should have objected at the time.” Watch it:

After a coalition of human rights and advocacy groups and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee voiced strong objections to his nomination, the White House backed down and withdrew his nomination.

Rizzo effectively signed off on the destruction of evidence that may have proven that his original legal opinion was in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. And now, Hayden is citing Rizzo’s signature as proof that the video destruction “was done in line with the law.”

UPDATE: The New York Times reports the chief of the CIA’s clandestine service “ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.”