Haspel likely to be confirmed as chief
WASHINGTON — Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, won the backing of the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday, paving the way for her expected confirmation to lead the spy agency.
The panel voted 10-5 to advise the full Senate to confirm Haspel, whose nomination has renewed debate over the harsh interrogation program the CIA conducted on terror suspects after 9/11. Haspel, who supervised a CIA detention site in Thailand in 2002, has told Congress that the agency shouldn’t have used those harsh tactics and has vowed not to restart them.
The committee released the result of the vote, conducted in closed session, without giving further details. However, all eight Republicans and two of the seven Democrats on the panel earlier expressed support for Haspel. The remaining five Democrats had announced their opposition.
The confirmation vote by the full Senate could occur before the end of the week.
“Gina Haspel is the most qualified person the president could choose to lead the CIA and the most prepared nominee in the 70 year history of the agency,” said Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C. “She has acted morally, ethically, and legally, over a distinguished 30-year career and is the right person to lead the agency.”
She also had the support of the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.
“As director of the CIA, Gina Haspel will be the first operations officer in more than five decades to lead the agency,” Warner said.
“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,” he said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has staunchly opposed Haspel, called her nomination one of the most “self-serving abuses of power in recent history” because Haspel, as acting CIA director, was in a decision-making role in determining what parts of her undercover career were declassified. He likened that to a “stacking of the deck” and said he would continue to seek the declassification of details about her past activities at the agency.
Wyden said he would continue to seek the declassification of a Justice Department report about the destruction of more than 90 videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of one terror suspect. No charges were filed as a result of that report. Haspel drafted a cable that ordered the tapes destroyed, but the cable was sent by her boss, Jose Rodriguez, who has repeatedly taken responsibility for the order.