In confirmation hearings earlier this year, Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to answer direct questions about whether waterboarding constituted torture. Mukasey claimed he didn’t know what waterboarding was. In correspondence after the hearings but before his confirmation vote, Michael Mukasey refused to answer the same questions, even when provided detailed information about the history and case law surrounding waterboarding.

George W. Bush complained that Michael Mukasey was not being treated “fairly” by being asked all these questions before he was confirmed to be Attorney General. Mukasey’s apologists outside the administration also claimed that Mukasey couldn’t, just couldn’t, answer the questions before he gained confirmation as Attorney General. Besides, they said, the whole discussion was entirely hypothetical. There was no conclusive proof that the Bush administration had waterboarded anybody, they continued, so why focus on such a divisive, nasty, partisan question? Sure, there was no proof because all the evidence was classified, but hey, that’s how it works. All those people with questions should just shut up already and unite for the good of… erm, well, they should just unite.

Now Michael Mukasey has been confirmed Attorney General. Mukasey was sworn in a month ago. And this morning we found out that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes of its interrogations after the higher-ups concluded that the goings on looked prosecutable. What were the goings on? The New York Times was told that at least one of the detainees being interrogated in the videotapes had been waterboarded.

Destruction of evidence of a crime? Obstruction of justice? Torture? These are crimes. They are federal crimes. If a crime has occurred, it is up to the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute. Michael Mukasey heads up the Justice Department. Mukasey is responsible for what happens — or does not happen — next.

The revelations of the past day make clear that questions about waterboarding in Michael Mukasey’s confirmation hearings were relevant and appropriate, since they had to do with Michael Mukasey’s willingness to prosecute violations of federal law. This is why Michael Mukasey needs not only to answer those questions now, but to begin a thorough legal investigation of what our government has been doing in our names. If Michael Mukasey won’t do that, he is not fit to be Attorney General. If Michael Mukasey will not speak and will not act, he needs to resign.