Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, received positive reviews from Republicans and a key undecided Democrat after her public confirmation hearing Tuesday, but her Democratic opponents blasted her responses to questions about her role overseeing the agency’s interrogation program and want more answers from her at an upcoming classified session.
“I think so far she’s done a good job,” Sen Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said after the public Senate Intelligence Committee hearing broke for a series of Senate votes.
Haspel, currently serving as acting CIA director, needs to win over Manchin or at least one other Democrat if she hopes to win confirmation by the Senate.
Democrats who oppose Haspel say her role at the CIA following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, in which she oversaw enhanced interrogation of suspected terrorists that is defined by many as torture, make her the wrong choice to head the agency.
[Related: Watch: Protesters repeatedly disrupt Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing]
Manchin isn’t sure, and said he needs to hear more from Haspel about her role in the matter before he makes up his mind.
“The closed session is going to be the telltale sign because we are going to be able to get into classified things we couldn’t talk about,” Manchin told the Washington Examiner. “So I’m waiting for that.”
With the exception of sole GOP opponent Rand Paul, R-Ky., Republicans have been unbending in their support of Haspel and said her performance at the hearing Thursday would further boost her chances of win confirmation as the first woman to head the agency.
“She did very well,” Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, a member of the Intelligence panel, told the Washington Examiner. “She’s going to be confirmed.”
Haspel on Tuesday sought to extinguish fears that she would revive the long-dead interrogation program. She told committee members she planned to follow the law, which now prohibits the techniques used post-September 11 that included waterboarding, and she said she had no interest in reviving the practice.
She did nothing to convince Democratic opponents Ron Wyden, D-Ore., or Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who remain opposed following the first round of questioning.
The two lawmakers have sought declassification of all of Haspel’s work history and have criticized the agency for lobbying on Haspel’s behalf.
“I thought that this basically continued this coverup strategy where you stonewall on appropriate declassification, you’ve got a public influence campaign and just out and out misinformation,” Wyden said.
Heinrich said Haspel gave “legalistic, vague” answers to questions about the agency’s interrogation program. “I want to know about leadership and I want someone I can trust and she hasn’t earned my trust,” he said.
A significant swath of Democrats however, remain undecided, among them Intelligence panel senior members Dianne Feinstein of California and Mark Warner of Virginia. They said Haspel was not forthcoming in her answers and said the classified questioning will help them decide whether to back her nomination.
Some Democrats wanted to hear Haspel specifically voice opposition to the use of enhanced interrogation.
“I’ve got more questions for her in the closed setting,” Warner told the Washington Examiner as he headed back into the hearing. “On certain questions that I was looking for on the issue of acknowledging that the interrogation program is not consistent with the America values, she kinda got there but not with the clarity I would have liked to have seen.”
Feinstein said Haspel had to answer many more questions about her three decades at the CIA and whether she can lead the agency.
“We are not finished,” Feinstein said. “We need to know what it is, and I need to know, is she strong enough and I was disappointed in certain answers.”
