U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter, and told lawyers to appear before him this Friday.

Kennedy as you recall was the judge who ordered the government to preserve, “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.”

The tapes were destroyed a couple of months later.

Even if the destruction technically complied with the letter of his order, they could still be on the hook for obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in “pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation.”