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By EVAN PEREZ

The Justice Department appointed a prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of videotape recordings of detainee interrogations.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that a joint preliminary inquiry opened Dec. 8 by Justice's National Security Division and the CIA's inspector general determined "there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter."

Mr. Mukasey named John Durham, the No. 2 federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to lead the investigation. Prosecutors in eastern Virginia, where the CIA headquarters is located, recused themselves from the probe, as did the CIA inspector general's office.

Prosecutors in the office of the U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia have handled several major terror cases that could be affected by the CIA tape destruction, including the one against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in prison for charges related to the 9/11 attacks. In October, prosecutors in the office also first alerted a federal judge about the existence of the CIA tapes and their destruction, contradicting the CIA's earlier assertion to the court that there were no such tapes.

Mr. Mukasey, in a statement, said the prosecutors' recusal was made "in order to avoid any possible appearance of a conflict with other matters handled by that office."

CIA Inspector General John Helgerson said he recused himself and other officials in his office to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. "Personnel from the Office of Inspector General reviewed the tapes at issue some years ago as part of the Office's review of CIA's detention and interrogation activities," he said. "I was personally involved in the preparation and approval of the subsequent Office of Inspector General report and in discussions of the issues raised in that report with U.S. government officials."

The appointment of Mr. Durham, a career prosecutor since 1982, allows Mr. Mukasey to demonstrate the Justice Department's independence despite the political pressures that surround the case and much else the department does of late. Mr. Mukasey is trying to restore the department's reputation after months of political upheaval that led to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Some Democrats, however, have pushed for the Justice Department to name an independent special counsel and aren't pleased with the appointment of Mr. Durham, who will report directly to the deputy attorney general. The law governing independent counsels expired in 1999, when Congress didn't renew it. In the case of the investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, overseen by Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, some critics of the Bush administration complained that the probe never answered key questions because he didn't publish a final investigative report, as an independent counsel would do.

Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said of Mr. Mukasey's move: "Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied -- as they were in the Valerie Plame matter -- any final report on the investigation."

Mr. Durham is highly regarded in the department. In 1999, Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Mr. Durham to lead a special team that investigated alleged criminal misconduct by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and other law-enforcement corruption in Boston.

CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden has said that the tapes were legitimately destroyed to protect the identities of interrogators, and prosecutors have played down the importance the tapes may hold in several continuing or past terror cases. The CIA also didn't share the tapes with the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks. Critics of the Bush administration have alleged that their destruction may amount to destruction of evidence, which could be a crime.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency would "cooperate fully" with the investigation. Already, the agency has allowed congressional investigators to review documents related to the tape destruction. Congressional committees are planning hearings into the matter, and the House Intelligence Committee has ordered Jose Rodriguez, former chief of the CIA's National Clandestine Service who directed that the tapes be destroyed in late 2005, to appear before the committee Jan. 16.

President Bush said last month that he had "no recollection" of the tapes' existence or their destruction until he was briefed by CIA officials just before news stories were about to be published on the matter.