House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) this week asked the National Archives to determine whether the CIA’s destruction of two videotapes of interrogations of terrorism subjects violated provisions of the Federal Records Act.

In the letter, Waxman stated that CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed in a Los Angeles Times article that the agency destroyed videotapes of the secret interrogations only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries.”

Waxman also requested that the National Archives provide information about the CIA’s overall management of federal records. In 2000, the National Archives conducted an inspection of the CIA’s records management system that identified weaknesses in some areas.