Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is asking the CIA to declassify agency documents related to CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel’s involvement in the spy agency’s interrogation program after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
“As we move forward with the nomination process for Ms. Haspel, my fellow senators and I must have the complete picture of Ms. Haspel’s involvement in the program in order to fully and fairly review her record and qualifications,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to Director Mike Pompeo and Haspel.
“I also believe the American people deserve to know the actual role the person nominated to be director of the CIA played in what I consider to be one of the darkest chapters in American history.”
Feinstein is requesting the declassification of “pertinent agency documents” related to Haspel’s role in the CIA’s interrogation program.
President Trump nominated Haspel to lead the CIA on Tuesday after firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replacing him with Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director.
Haspel has worked for the CIA since 1985 and has been scrutinized for her involvement in approving the enhanced interrogation techniques used after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Now the CIA’s deputy director, Haspel ran one of the spy agency’s so-called black sites in Thailand during the Iraq War.
Some Senate Democrats have come out against Haspel’s nomination to run the CIA—she would become the first woman to do so if confirmed—but Feinstein has not committed to opposing her nomination.
“We as senators take our role in confirming a president’s cabinet seriously and must evaluate Ms. Haspel’s record, including troubling press reports on her involvement with torture programs,” Feinstein wrote. “While public is useful, it is no substitute for the actual truth held in CIA cables, emails and internal memos.”
