“I think this is one case where it really does call for a special counsel,” Biden said Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The Delaware Democrat, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he believes the case of the deleted tapes “leads right into the White House.

“There may be a legal and rational explanation, but I don’t see any on the face of it,” he added.

Rockefeller, however, indicated that a congressional probe would be sufficient in the case.

“I don’t think there’s a need for a special counsel, and I don’t think there’s a need for a special commission,” Rockefeller said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “It is the job of the Intelligence Committees to do that.”

Rockefeller was backed by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), who also appeared on the show.

Democrats expressed outrage this week when news broke about the deletion of the tapes, claiming it is another case where the Bush administration views itself as above the law.

However, Republicans have also raised questions.

Surging GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee also criticized the destruction of the tapes.

“When we start destroying documents, what are we destroying them for? Are we doing it for security purposes or to cover somebody’s rear end?” the former Arkansas governor said on Fox News Sunday. “If we’re covering somebody's rear end, we need to expose their rear end and kick their rear end for doing something that’s against the best interest of the United States and the responsibility and the respectability of this country.”