CIA nominee: Wouldn’t resume brutal interrogations
Pledge comes as Dems aim to probe her background
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA has told senators privately that she would stand firm against any effort to restart the brutal detention and interrogation program the spy agency ran after 9/11, administration officials said Friday.
In comments meant to soften the public profile of Gina Haspel before her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, two administration officials said she was not the “architect” of the program but a “line officer” who never interrogated any terrorism suspects. The officials, who are familiar with her meetings on Capitol Hill, were not authorized to discuss her private conversations with the senators and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
It’s unclear if Haspel’s pledge will be enough to sway Democrats who say the acting CIA director should be disqualified because she was the chief of base at a covert detention site in Thailand where two terrorism suspects were subjected to waterboarding — a technique that simulates drowning.
Haspel’s vow to fight any attempt to resurrect the program puts her in the same camp as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has advised Trump that he doesn’t think torture is an effective interrogation tactic. But it’s at odds with Trump, who spoke in the campaign about toughening the U.S. approach to fighting extremists and vowed to authorize waterboarding and a “hell of a lot worse.”
Democrats, including Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, continue to ask the administration to declassify more details about Haspel’s involvement in the program, which stained America’s reputation abroad.
“Nominees make all kinds of promises when they’re trying to get confirmed,” Wyden said. “The Senate and the public need to know what kind of person is making those assurances, or else they’re just words. That’s why Ms. Haspel’s background needs to be declassified right now.”
Lawmakers on the Senate committee have not disclosed details of their conversations with Haspel in the run-up to her confirmation hearing and subsequent vote in the full Senate.