CIA pick gains more Democrats’ support
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee picked up support from key Democrats on Tuesday and toughened her public stance against harsh interrogation.
“With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken,” Gina Haspel said in written answers to more than 60 questions released by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Haspel, who was involved in supervising a secret CIA detention site in Thailand, wrote that she had learned “hard lessons since 9/11.” In comments aimed at clarifying her position on now-banned torture techniques, Haspel said she would “refuse to undertake any proposed activity that is contrary to my moral and ethical values.”
“I do not support use of enhanced interrogation techniques for any purpose,” Haspel wrote.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to vote today to recommend that the full Senate confirm her.
Confirmation by the full Senate appeared likely as five Democrats — Mark Warner of Virginia, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Bill Nelson of Florida and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — have announced their support. The only Senate Republicans who are not expected to vote for her are Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Arizona’s John McCain, who is battling cancer.
In announcing his support Tuesday, Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, said in a statement that Haspel has been “professional and forthright” with the panel. “Most importantly, I believe she is someone who can and will stand up to the president if ordered to do something illegal or immoral — like a return to torture,” Warner said.
He said that “in both our one-on-one meetings and in classified session before the committee, I found Acting Director Haspel to be more forthcoming regarding her views on the interrogation program.”
Haspel testified at a Senate hearing that torture does not work as an interrogation technique and that, as director, her strong “moral compass” would ensure she did not carry out any administrative directive she found objectionable. Her written answers to questions reiterated her opposition to any attempt to reinstate harsh interrogation of suspects.
McCain, who was beaten as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, has urged colleagues to reject the nominee because of her past role in CIA interrogations. After the hearing, McCain issued a statement calling Haspel a patriot for her three decades of service to the CIA. Still, McCain said, her role “in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”
In announcing her support, Heitkamp said it was not an easy decision.
“Ms. Haspel’s involvement in torture is deeply troubling, as my friend and colleague, John McCain, so eloquently reminded us,” Heitkamp said in a statement. “However,
Ms. Haspel explained to me that the agency should not have employed such tactics in the past and has assured me that it will not do so in the future.”
In her written answers, Haspel also pledged to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and said she agreed with the U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings in 2017 that the meddling was aimed at hurting Democrat Hillary Clinton and ultimately at helping Trump win.
Asked whether it’s necessary for the CIA director to “speak truth to power,” including to the president, Haspel said, “I have spent my life speaking truth to power” and that she has “delivered unwanted news to CIA directors, cabinet secretaries and the president.”
Haspel’s nomination has sparked a fresh debate over brutal interrogation practices. Otherwise, she has won bipartisan praise for her three decades as a working spy. If confirmed, Haspel would become the first woman to lead the CIA.
Trump has said in the past that the country should consider resuming the use of harsh interrogation techniques. And former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was integral to the post-Sept. 11, 2001, strategy, said last week that if it were up to him, “I’d do it again.”