President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director Gina Haspel was confirmed Thursday by a vote of 54-45. She will be the first female director of the agency.
Several vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection voted for Haspel, including Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, and Florida’s Bill Nelson. Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, who remained mum about her stance in the days and even hours preceding the Senate vote, voted against her.
After multiple meetings and calls over the last few weeks, Haspel also received the backing of the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Her nomination has been mired in controversy over her involvement in the CIA’s now-defunct detention and interrogation program, which she vowed last Wednesday to never restart if confirmed, even if ordered to do so.
Democrats were not satisfied with her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. Haspel conceded during her confirmation hearing that the CIA had not been prepared to conduct the interrogation program. But she would not describe it as immoral, instead answering along the lines of: “I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army Field Manual.” Arizona senator John McCain described her “refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality” as “disqualifying.”
Haspel sent a letter to Warner on Monday that appeared to alleviate some of the Democrats’ concerns. In it, she wrote, “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.”
The CIA nominee stuck to her refusal to condemn those officers and officials who participated in the program. “While I won’t condemn those that made these hard calls, and I have noted the valuable intelligence collected, the program ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world,” she said.
Ultimately, six Democrats voted for Haspel, and two Republicans, Arizona senator Jeff Flake and Kentucky senator Rand Paul, voted against her. McCain, who was not present for the vote as he battles cancer in Arizona, advised his colleagues to vote against her.
Warner said ahead of the vote Thursday that Haspel has widespread support at the agency.
“I have heard from many agency officers, and for that matter, members of the rank and file of other intelligence community agencies,” he said in remarks on Senate floor. “Almost to a person, this rank and file have supported her nomination.”
Haspel has served for 33 years at the CIA, 32 of which she spent undercover. She will be the first woman to hold the director post. “Seeing her portrait in the halls of the agency next to the long line of former directors will be a long overdue but important breakthrough for the intelligence community,” Warner said Thursday.
She will also be the relatively rare example of a CIA director who spent most of her career in operations.
