COMMENTARY WRITER TOM ROGAN IN WASHINGTON EXAMINER: The Intelligence Community, Here and Abroad, Has Gina Haspel’s Back.
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Over the weekend, Haspel reportedly offered to withdraw her nomination over the ongoing concerns regarding her alleged involvement in torture programs.
And during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration, Sen.
Haspel’s other big sin is her role in the destruction of videotapes that showed the waterboarding of two detainees. Haspel is telling senators that she would stand firm against restarting the spy agency’s brutal interrogation program of terrorist suspects.
“Given that Trump chose to do that, it’s critical that there be this conversation”, Bloche said in an interview. They argue that having Haspel as the face of USA intelligence will undercut America’s effort to champion human rights. They will not be asked by party leaders to vote no. Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia has said only the most laudatory things about Haspel. Dianne Feinstein of California and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
Republicans control just 51 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and Republican senator Rand Paul has already indicated he will oppose Ms Haspel’s nomination.
“The torture of detainees in USA custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history”, said Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973. Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Kirsten Gillibrand of NY already have said they’ll vote against Haspel. “I appreciate that, but it is not enough”, Warner said.
Gina Haspel could become the first woman ever to lead the Central Intelligence Agency – if she can make it through what’s shaping up to be an intense Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.
It’s unclear when the committee will vote on Haspel’s nomination.
After meeting with Haspel on Tuesday, Oregon Sen.
Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing is scheduled Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Trump administration officials talked her out of it.
Haspel added that she believes it’s now clear that the “CIA was not prepared to conduct a detention and interrogation program”. He recanted that position, but given his complaint on Twitter Monday morning that Haspel had “come under fire because she was too tough on Terrorists”, there’s reason to doubt the sincerity of his earlier pledges to follow worldwide law.
Senator Ron Wyden, one of the committee Democrats most skeptical of Haspel’s nomination, said the documents could, and should, be made public to answer questions about her record.
She has told lawmakers in recent weeks that she would stand firm against any effort to restart the detention and interrogation program, administration officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
There is evidence that Haspel was Chief of Base at Detention Site Green in late 2002 when ‘Abd al-Nashiri was subjected to the torture technique known as “waterboarding” – mock execution via interrupted drowning – and when he and fellow detainee Abu Zubaydah were subjected to enforced disappearance there. The agency’s former deputy director, she would succeed Mike Pompeo, a Republican former congressman confirmed last month as secretary of state. Her boss, then director of clandestine services, Jose Rodriguez, issued the memo and the tapes were destroyed. Because the CIA is one of the federal agencies exempted from normal Office of Personnel Management rules (i.e., CIA is an excepted service), Obama didn’t actually need to have a federal prosecutor file charges to get rid of CIA personnel involved in the torture program.
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“This is an opportunity for the most qualified candidate nominated for that post to have an opportunity to share with America her expertise, her knowledge and her passion for the agency”, the North Carolina Republican said.
