Senators and human rights groups are already planning to press President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA about her role in approving enhanced interrogation techniques, just hours after Trump announced her pending nomination.
Many Republicans and Democrats said Tuesday they don’t know much about Gina Haspel, who has spent more than three decades at the CIA and is now the deputy director.
But she has raised concern from key lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., whose support could be critical in assuring her confirmation.
“Ms. Haspel needs to explain the nature and extent of her involvement in the CIA’s interrogation program during the confirmation process,” McCain said in a statement Tuesday. “I know the Senate will do its job in examining Ms. Haspel’s record as well as her beliefs about torture and her approach to current law.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is not announcing his opposition to Haspel or Mike Pompeo, the current CIA Director who Trump has picked to serve as his new secretary of state.
But he’s not backing them yet, either. Schumer said there are “lots of outstanding questions” about both nominees, and he’s not taking a position yet.
Haspel, 61, drew opposition from human rights organizations when she was elevated to deputy director last year. They accused her of overseeing the secret prisons where suspected terrorists were questioned with “enhanced interrogation techniques,” otherwise labeled as torture, during the Bush administration.
The advocacy group Human Rights First said they oppose her nomination.
“During Gina Haspel’s long tenure at the CIA, she oversaw torture at a CIA blacksite during one of the bleakest points in our nation’s history,” said Raha Wala, the organization’s director of national security advocacy. “No one who had a hand in torturing individuals deserves to ever hold public office again, let alone lead an agency. To allow someone who had a direct hand in this illegal, immoral, and counterproductive program is to willingly forget our nation’s dark history with torture.”
Christopher Anders, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Haspel was “up to her eyeballs in torture” at the CIA and worked to destroy the evidence.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who sits on the Senate Intelligence panel, said he needs to question Haspel to determine whether he would vote for her.
“I don’t know much about her,” Manchin said. When asked about her oversight of enhanced interrogation at the agency Manchin said, “We’re going to be looking into that.”
If confirmed, Haspel would become the first women to ever head the CIA. She has many backers on Capitol Hill who say her role at the CIA has already been scrutinized by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the former ranking member on the panel. But Feinstein fought against Haspel’s advancement under President Obama.
Haspel’s ascension to deputy did not require a confirmation vote from the Senate or a hearing. Unlike Pompeo, she has never been officially vetted by the upper chamber.
She’ll now face questions and a vote from the Senate Intelligence Committee and must then win a simple majority vote by the Senate. Republicans can approve her if they stick together, and so far, they seem to be.
It’s not clear they will. Not only is McCain questioning Haspel’s nomination, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced he’ll hold a press conference Wednesday to discuss both nominations.
A Paul spokesman declined to say whether the Senator is opposed to either nominee, but Paul voted against Pompeo’s confirmation to head the CIA.
“I voted against the new CIA Director because I worry that his desire for security will trump his defense of liberty,” Paul said at the time in an op-ed posted on Rare.com.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., told the Washington Examiner that Haspel is “imminently qualified” and deserves to be confirmed.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Iowa, who as a member of the Intelligence Committee was deeply involved in the investigations into CIA torture, said he still backs Haspel to head the CIA.
“I sat through all those investigations,” Risch told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t have any issues with that.”
Burr told the Washington Examiner that Haspel will be able allay McCain’s concerns by meeting with him. “She talked to Sen. Feinstein and Sen. Feinstein seemed satisfied with her conversations when she went in as deputy.”
Feinstein, however, said Tuesday she has not made up her mind about confirming Haspel to head the CIA. Other Democrats said they would vote no.
“I voted against Mr. Pompeo’s nomination to be CIA director because he failed to express moral opposition to torture,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a war veteran. “But Ms. Haspel has done much worse. Not only did she directly supervise the torture of detainees, but she also participated in covering it up by helping to destroy the video evidence. Her reprehensible actions should disqualify her from having the privilege of serving the American people in government ever again, but apparently this President believes they merit a promotion. I could not disagree more.”
