I think you should just go read this whole thing.In "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," scheduled to be released today, [ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan] Karl reports that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell tried to enlist a Pentagon official to help overturn the election.
ABC News
What has Haspel done to displease him?The list of planned replacements is much longer, but these are Trump's priorities, starting with Wray.
Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump's inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.
Axios
"The view of Haspel in the West Wing." So, Ivanka and Jared don't like her."The view of Haspel in the West Wing is that she still sees her job as manipulating people and outcomes, the way she must have when she was working assets in the field," one source with direct knowledge of the internal conversations told Axios. "It's bred a lot of suspicion of her motives."
Trump is also increasingly frustrated with Haspel for opposing the declassification of documents that would help the Justice Department's Durham report.
Unhappy with Betsy DeVos???Trump soured on Esper over the summer when the Defense secretary rebuffed the idea of sending active-duty military into the streets to deal with racial justice protests and distanced himself from the clearing of Lafayette Square for a photo op at St. John's church.
Trump indicated to Axios then that he "really wasn't focused on" firing Esper. One senior official cautioned that others who want the Pentagon job could be driving speculation to undercut Esper.
[...]
Trump last week signed an executive order that set off alarm bells as a means to politicize the civil service. An administration official said the order "is a really big deal" that would make it easier for presidents to get rid of career government officials.
There could be shake-ups across other departments. The president has never been impressed with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, for example. But that doesn't carry the urgency of replacing Wray or Haspel.
I doubt if he could find anyone more subservient. Unless he plans to put all his family members in office. I saw recently that Tiffany Trump got her law degree.While Trump has also privately vented about Attorney General Bill Barr, he hasn't made any formal plans to replace him, an official said.
Chris Liddell, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, is heading the White House’s transition effort, including vetting potential new Cabinet officials, two White House officials told Axios.
He's working closely with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Johnny McEntee, who runs the Office of Presidential Personnel and has been conducting "loyalty tests" to weed out "Never Trumpers" from the administration.
Perhaps that's actually because she has an agreement with Trump so he can say things like "it never reached my desk".The CIA has made it harder for intelligence about Russia to reach the White House, stoking fears among current and former officials that information is being suppressed to please a president known to erupt in anger whenever he is confronted with bad news about Moscow.
Nine current and former officials said in interviews that CIA Director Gina Haspel has become extremely cautious about which, if any, Russia-related intelligence products make their way to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Politico
Haspel also has been keeping a close eye on the agency’s fabled “Russia House,” whose analysts she often disagrees with and sometimes accuses of purposefully misleading her.
Last year, three of the people said, Haspel tasked the CIA’s general counsel, Courtney Elwood, with reviewing virtually every product that comes out of Russia House, which is home to analysts and targeters who are experts in Russia and the post-Soviet space, before it “goes downtown” to the White House. One former CIA lawyer called it “unprecedented that a general counsel would be involved to this extent.”
[...]
One administration official explained the reduced Russia-related intelligence flow from CIA to the National Security Council as a matter of “quality over quantity.” Another administration official said that while the CIA is not the only agency that provides intelligence to the NSC, this official’s perception was that the CIA was “certainly” exhibiting an “abundance of caution” about the Russia intelligence it was sending to the NSC, beginning around the time of Trump’s impeachment proceedings. A whistleblower complaint about Trump from a CIA analyst, which Elwood relayed to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg at the time, is what sparked Trump’s impeachment — feeding the mistrust toward Russia-related intelligence inside the White House and among the agency’s top ranks.
[...]
Trump, who has publicly railed against the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in 2016 to bolster his candidacy, has also been working to bring the intelligence community further under his control since his impeachment acquittal in February. He has installed loyalists in top positions like director of national intelligence and the senior-most intelligence post on the NSC staff.
[...]
As recently as last Thursday, the president blasted his own FBI director on Twitter for testifying that Moscow was seeking to “sow divisiveness and discord” and “denigrate Vice President Biden” in a bid to influence the 2020 campaign.
[...]
The head of Russia House, whom officials declined to identify by name because they work undercover, was fired earlier this year, according to four of the current and former officials familiar with the matter, but remains at the agency in another mission center. It’s not clear why he was ousted, but Haspel’s personal dislike of him was clear.
Another Russia House analyst quit earlier this year after Haspel accused him of lying about intelligence — an accusation that happens fairly often, several former officials said. “She calls analysts liars all the time,” said one former CIA official.
[...]
More recently, Haspel “completely dismissed” Russia House analysts who brought her intelligence showing a correlation between Russia and the curious phenomenon of diplomats experiencing brain trauma, according to one current U.S. official with knowledge of the episode.
[...]
“She had a very defensive reaction, reacted very poorly and made some comments about needing to clean out Russia House,” the official said.
He knows he'll be shitcanned.“We thought her feeling that Russia House was cliquey or insular was grossly unfair,” said a former senior CIA official. “She had preconceived notions about it, from her own time at the agency.” Haspel joined the CIA in 1985 and spent nearly her entire career working undercover as a clandestine officer, serving as chief of station in Europe and Central Eurasia and focusing at times on Russian operations, according to a CIA-issued timeline.
[...]
Ryan Tully is the fifth person to hold the senior director role, which previously had been held by Fiona Hill and Tim Morrison, both of whom testified in the impeachment inquiry. Joe Wang, who was deputy senior director for Europe and Russia at the NSC under Tully, left for the State Department over the summer. All that turnover “has been hard on [Russia policy],” another administration official said, “because you need someone driving it who has a consistent view — and it doesn’t seem like working on [Russia] has been a top priority.”
Critics of national security adviser Robert O’Brien say he has been prone to highlighting national security information and intelligence “that he knows the president will respond well to,” as one former White House official put it. “O’Brien doesn’t want anyone to touch things Russia-related because of the reaction,” a second former White House official said. “He just doesn’t want to rock the boat with Trump.”
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Some still fear [...] that Haspel’s negative perception of CIA’s Russia analysts is the result of ongoing political pressure by the Trump administration to frame them as biased and myopic because of a conclusion they drew in 2016 that has enraged the president: that Putin ordered an interference campaign specifically to bolster Trump’s candidacy. That analysis was based at least in part on information from a highly sensitive CIA asset in the Kremlin, and is now at the center of [John] Durham’s probe.
[...]
Trump’s firing of former acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who made the career-ending decision to allow a deputy to brief lawmakers on Russia’s ongoing election interference, is still top of mind for many in the intelligence community who fear they could land in Trump’s crosshairs if they challenge him in any official setting.
Those fears played out on Thursday night, when Trump went on a Twitter rampage against FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray had testified during a public congressional hearing about Russia’s ongoing attempts to undermine Biden.
[...]
Wray and other national security leaders, including Haspel, had specifically sought to avoid Trump’s wrath earlier this year by requesting that the annual Worldwide Threats hearing before Congress be held behind closed doors and out of his sight.
[...]
“No one is willing to challenge” Elwood or Haspel, said the former senior CIA official. He added that Haspel’s changes have “been framed by some as an effort to ‘protect the building’ — well, her job is not to protect the building, it’s to protect the country.”
Precisely. So would that be bullshit, or is it bullshit that the Republican administration is not?In remarks after a briefing from CIA Director Gina Haspel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested there is no plausible way that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman didn’t order the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, and said that the evidence is overwhelming.
[...]
Graham said Tuesday that you’d have to be “willfully blind” to not know Mohammed was responsible — a clear rebuke of Trump’s argument that this whole thing resides in some kind of gray area.
[...]
The senator said there was indeed a “smoking saw” — a reference to the reported bonesaw that was brought to dismember Khashoggi — and that Pompeo was being a “good soldier” by toeing the administration’s line.
[...]
“If they were in a Democratic administration,” Graham said of Pompeo and Mattis, “I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.”
WaPo
And what do you suppose they'll do about that?[Republican Senator Bob] Corker also suggested that the briefing last week, which featured Pompeo and Mattis but not Haspel, was entirely misleading.
[...]
Q: After hearing from Haspel today and Mattis/Pompeo last week, was there a difference in the message or the determination that MBS was responsible (for Khashoggi murder)?
*pause*
CORKER: “Um, difference between darkness and sunshine.”
[...]
To be clear, these senators aren’t just accusing the administration of missing the point on Khashoggi; they’re saying they feel misled and that the administration has obscured the truth.
Or are they just covering their asses with their constituents by sounding out and doing nothing?These senators are serving notice that they won’t back down without a fight — a fight that could tar both Pompeo’s and Mattis’s legacies.
Sure. Who knows? But last week all reports were that the order came from the White House that she shouldn't be there.In some of their strongest accusations to date, lawmakers said evidence presented by the U.S. spy agency overwhelmingly pointed to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the assassination [of journalist Jamal Khashoggi].
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said while there was no smoking gun, there was a “smoking saw,” referring to the bone saw that investigators have said was used to dismember Khashoggi after he was killed by a team of agents from Saudi Arabia in that country’s consulate in Istanbul in October.
[...]
[He] said the United States should come down on the government in Riyahd like “a ton of bricks,” adding that he could no longer support arms sales to the Saudis as long as Mohammed was in charge.
[...]
Haspel was noticeably absent last week from an all-senators briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Lawmakers complained that the Trump administration was depriving Congress of key information about the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, by refusing to order Haspel to go to the Hill and explain the CIA’s assessment.
[...]
Senators put themselves in direct opposition to the White House, making clear that the evidence they heard had convinced them beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“If the Crown Prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
[...]
Haspel provided the closed briefing just days before the Senate is expected to begin debating a resolution to withdraw U.S. support for the Saudi military campaign in Yemen.
[...]
Some senators had accused the White House of barring Haspel’s participation in last week’s briefing with Pompeo and Mattis. But CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said nobody told Haspel not to appear.
WaPo
Surely Senator Paul, a Republican, isn't under the impression that we are living in a democracy.Haspel spoke only to Senate leaders and the heads of national security committees with an interest in Saudi policy regarding Yemen and the intelligence surrounding Khashoggi’s killing, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.
[...]
Bipartisan leaders from the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Appropriations subcommittees that fund the State and Defense departments were expected to be included.
Some rank-and-file senators were furious that they were excluded from the briefing.
“I can’t even ask to be included in it because I didn’t know it was going to happen, except for reading about it in the media. That’s not the way it should be. She should have come and testified in front of all senators,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said. “If you have some senators who are more equal than others, that is not democratic representation.”
Haspel’s briefing may have been designed to placate some [Republican] senators. But it is not expected to deter Senate Democrats — or the handful of Republicans who say Saudi Arabia should be rebuked — from supporting the Yemen resolution [for ending Saudi attacks that is being proposed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee] beyond its next step, a vote expected to take place in the next few days.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel will brief Senate leaders Tuesday morning on what the spy agency knows about Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death at the hands of Saudi operatives, people familiar with the matter said.
Ms. Haspel’s planned briefing follows criticism that the Trump administration received from several lawmakers last week after she failed to join an earlier briefing on Saudi policy conducted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
WSJ
And to do the bidding of Muhammed bin Salman, putting Saudi Arabia's interests above that of the US. Is there also some information that Trump and Kushner actively aided and abetted bin Salman in the murder of Khashoggi? They're certainly giving him cover.The White House is preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, or any other intelligence official from briefing the Senate on the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.
The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the defence secretary, James Mattis, are due to give a briefing on US relations with Saudi Arabia to the entire Senate behind closed doors on Wednesday, ahead of a vote that could cut off US support for Riyadh’s military campaign in Yemen.
On a national security issue of such importance, it would be customary for a senior intelligence official to take part. On this occasion, the absence of the intelligence community is all the more glaring, as Haspel travelled to Istanbul to hear audio tapes of Khashoggi’s murder provided by Turkish intelligence, and then briefed Donald Trump.
Officials made it clear that the decision for Haspel not to appear in front of the committee came from the White House.
[...]
[T]he administration is increasingly nervous that the Senate will rebel against its policy of maintaining support for Riyadh and Prince Mohammed, asserting its powers under the War Powers Resolution.
As of Tuesday, however, the Senate was told by the administration to expect only Pompeo and Mattis at the Wednesday briefing. The White House did not respond to a query on the absence of an intelligence official.
“There is always an intel person there for a briefing like this,” a Senate staffer told the Guardian. “It is totally unprecedented and should be interpreted as nothing less than the Trump administration trying to silence the intelligence community.”
The Guardian
UPDATE 12/3: After backlash, Haspel will speak to the Senate leaders now.The timing of the vote on the Saudi resolution is unclear. Senator [Bernie] Sanders has said there is support for holding it this week. The Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, can try to postpone it, but cannot put it off indefinitely, as any measure under the War Powers Resolution has privileged status and cannot be stopped from going to the Senate floor for a vote.
Haspel told the White House she was interested in stepping aside if it avoided the spectacle of a brutal confirmation hearing on Wednesday and potential damage to the CIA’s reputation and her own [saying that she didn’t want to be “the next Ronny Jackson,” one official said].
WaPo
Now I've heard everything. Formal government meetings.The Central Intelligence Agency was still defending, as late as last year, a 2005 decision by Gina Haspel and her former boss, Jose Rodriguez, to destroy videos of CIA torture at a black site Haspel oversaw, according to previously unpublished documents obtained by ThinkProgress.
Remarkably, the CIA argued that it did not need to preserve videotapes of its “enhanced interrogations” — torture sessions with suspects that involved methods like wall slams, confinement boxes, and waterboarding — because they were like formal government meetings, and therefore less stringent guidelines applied when it came to preserving records of such a “meeting.”
[...]
National Archives guidance from 1995 determined that a recording of a formal meeting can be destroyed if an accurate transcript exists.
Think Progress
It's alsmot as if the CIA is above the law.“[W]e disagree that an ‘interrogation’ would qualify as a ‘meeting,’” [National Archives chief records officer, Laurence] Brewer responded.
[...]
President Donald Trump nominated Haspel as CIA director [...] . She was a “strong advocate” for destroying the torture tapes, a former CIA officers told The New York Times, and she reportedly sent the Nov. 8, 2005, memo that approved their destruction.
[...]
NARA opened its investigation on Dec. 10, 2007, four days after The New York Times first reported that the CIA destroyed the tapes. But the CIA said it could not cooperate until after the Justice Department finished a separate criminal investigation into both the tape destruction and the interrogations themselves. That investigation ended without prosecutions in 2012. NARA followed up with the CIA about its own investigation in March 2016. NARA did not respond when asked why it took four years to follow up on the investigation.
The videos were also the subject of a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The judge in that case sanctioned the CIA over the tapes’ destruction, but he declined to hold the agency in contempt.
"Out of context"??Even before Haspel arrived at Cat’s Eye [the CIA black site in Thailand where the tapes were made], there was a debate within the CIA about what to do with the videotapes. Internal cables and emails released to the American Civil Liberties Union in a separate lawsuit show that some within the agency felt that the tapes created an unacceptable security risk [for the interrogators], that they needed to be destroyed, and that the law didn’t specifically preclude their destruction.
[...]
Other internal CIA memos from 2002 and early 2003 instructed Cat’s Eye to retain the videos, and internal memos from 2003 and 2004 show a discussion within the CIA about whether the videotapes would be covered by federal records laws.
The decision by Rodriguez, who was then head of CIA’s Directorate of Operations, to approve destruction of the videos was controversial within the agency and the White House, emails released to the ACLU show. Then-CIA Director Porter Goss expressed agreement with the decision.
[...]
“As Jose said, the heat from destroying [the tapes] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into [the] public domain — he said that out of context they would make us look terrible; it would be ‘devastating’ to us,” the email, whose author is redacted, said.
Did she not know the CIA isn't exactly beholden to the White House? Was she worried that someone in the White House might be implicated?A follow-up email to Foggo from the same redacted author later that same day was less confident.
“Dusty – ok – on the Zabaydah [sic] tapes — I am no longer feeling comfortable,” it began.
The email went on to claim that Rodriguez hadn’t consulted John Rizzo, the CIA’s then acting general counsel, or the CIA’s Inspector General before giving the OK to destroy the tapes. That cut the White House out of the loop, too, allegedly angering then White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Barry Eisler, best-selling author and ex-CIA operative, wrote a thriller in 2014 called "Inside Out" using this story of the tapes, which includes the fact that it was first reported that two tapes were destroyed, and over a year later reported it was not two, but ninety-two tapes that were destroyed.The email then mentions the person who drafted the memo approving the tape destruction. While the name is redacted in the email, The New York Times reported that person was Haspel.
“Cable was apparently drafted by [redacted] and released by Jose; they are only two names on it so I am told by Rizzo,” the email said. “Either [redacted] lied to Jose about ‘clearing’ with [redacted] and IG (my bet) or Jose misstated the facts. (It is not without relevance that [redacted] figured prominently in the tapes, as [redacted] was in charge of [redacted] at the time and clearly would want the tapes destroyed.)”
What does Gail Helt have against Gina Haspel? Surely we'll be hearing that Helt has a personal beef and is a terrible person.Some videotapes recording the torture of a CIA detainee may have survived the 2005 destruction facilitated by Donald Trump’s nominee to run the agency. That’s according to an ex-CIA analyst who reviewed massive amounts of internal CIA documentation about torture and said she was told by a colleague that some of the tapes survived.
The analyst’s assertions are the basis for a new motion filed in federal court by the legal team of tortured terror suspect Abu Zubaydah, whose waterboarding and other brutal interrogation was the subject of most of the 2002-era videos.
[...]
If any tapes still exist, their existence has implications for Gina Haspel’s potential CIA directorship. In November 2005, Haspel drafted a cable for her boss, clandestine-service chief Jose Rodriguez, ordering the destruction of the videotapes. For years Rodriguez had urged his superiors to destroy the tapes, out of a stated fear that the brutality depicted on them would inevitably leak .
[...]
The former CIA analyst does not have first-hand knowledge that the tapes survived. Her account comes from an April 2013 conversation with a CIA colleague who told her that some of Abu Zubaydah’s tapes still existed at the time of their discussion. Her colleague, whom The Daily Beast has not interviewed and whose identity The Daily Beast does not know, denied to investigators for Abu Zubaydah’s legal team any memory of telling the ex-analyst about the tapes.
But the now-retired analyst, Gail Helt, said she memorialized their conversation in a notebook she kept at the time, a copy of which The Daily Beast has seen. Haspel’s nomination has compelled her to disclose what she heard, Helt said.
Daily Beast
Sorry, Sarah. We can support women and oppose torture proponents at the same time. Just like when we didn't vote for Hillary, that did not, as Democrats tried to claim, mean we were against having a woman president. We were all for it. Just not that woman.Haspel told the White House she was interested in stepping aside if it avoided the spectacle of a brutal confirmation hearing on Wednesday and potential damage to the CIA’s reputation and her own [saying that she didn’t want to be “the next Ronny Jackson,” one official said].
[...]
Taken aback at her stance, senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Va., to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon. Discussions stretched several hours, officials said, and the White House was not entirely sure she would stick with her nomination until Saturday afternoon.
[...]
An administration official said the nomination remains on track. “There is a hearing prep session today, courtesy calls with senators Monday and Tuesday, and classified materials will be delivered to Senate security so senators can read the real record instead of relying on gossip and unfounded smears,” the official said.
[...]
“There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel,” [spokesperson Sarah Huckabeek-Sanders] tweeted. “Any Democrat who claims to support women’s empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.”
WaPo
It's still unlikely that any tapes will be "found".Some videotapes recording the torture of a CIA detainee may have survived the 2005 destruction facilitated by Donald Trump’s nominee to run the agency. That’s according to an ex-CIA analyst who reviewed massive amounts of internal CIA documentation about torture and said she was told by a colleague that some of the tapes survived.
The analyst’s assertions are the basis for a new motion filed in federal court by the legal team of tortured terror suspect Abu Zubaydah, whose waterboarding and other brutal interrogation was the subject of most of the 2002-era videos.
[...]
“For years, the CIA told Petitioner and the rest of the world that it had destroyed the tapes of his torture,” Margulies writes. “We now know that a copy of the tapes likely exists. In this motion, we seek relief to correct this state of affairs.”
The Daily Beast
Whoever is sitting on those tapes is waiting for something specific, or has since destroyed them as well.If any tapes still exist, their existence has implications for Gina Haspel’s potential CIA directorship. In November 2005, Haspel drafted a cable for her boss, clandestine-service chief Jose Rodriguez, ordering the destruction of the videotapes. For years Rodriguez had urged his superiors to destroy the tapes, out of a stated fear that the brutality depicted on them would inevitably leak and place the CIA interrogators, whose faces were supposedly visible on the recordings, in jeopardy.
The former CIA analyst does not have first-hand knowledge that the tapes survived. [...] Her colleague, whom The Daily Beast has not interviewed and whose identity The Daily Beast does not know, denied to investigators for Abu Zubaydah’s legal team any memory of telling the ex-analyst about the tapes.
But the now-retired analyst, Gail Helt, said she memorialized their conversation in a notebook she kept at the time, a copy of which The Daily Beast has seen. Haspel’s nomination has compelled her to disclose what she heard, Helt said.
Gina may have to prove her chops soon. She was number 2 at CIA, below Pompeo, and Trump may have given her the number 1 job just because he hasn't actually thought about who he might put in that position.IN MAY 2013, the Washington Post’s Greg Miller reported that the head of the CIA’s clandestine service was being shifted out of that position as a result of “a management shake-up” by then-Director John Brennan.
[...]
As Miller put it, she was “directly involved in its controversial interrogation program” and had an “extensive role” in torturing detainees. Even more troubling, she “had run a secret prison in Thailand” — part of the CIA’s network of “black sites” — “where two detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh techniques.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture also detailed the central role she played in the particularly gruesome torture of detainee Abu Zubaydah.
Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. [...] A special prosecutor and grand jury investigated those actions but ultimately chose not to prosecute.
Glenn Greenwald
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.No one was ever prosecuted for their role in torture during the 2000s -- instead, one CIA official who tried to blow the whistle on torture was sent to prison. The clear message was this: America is a place where there is no accountability.
Which meant the stage was set for history to repeat -- and repeat quickly. With no signal that torture not only violated America's core values but was against the law, Donald Trump could run for president explicitly promising to bring it back. Since his election victory, Trump has kept his promise. He appointed -- and the Senate confirmed -- a new CIA director who said he was OK with bringing back waterboarding. The new president is poised to sign an executive order explicitly allowing the CIA to re-open its secret "black site" prisons. And today, Trump's CIA chief Mike Pompeo named one of the people who should have been prosecuted for her role in torture as the spy agency's No. 2 [Gina Haspel].
[...]
[As the Washington Post's Greg Miller put it in 2013,] she was “directly involved in its controversial interrogation program” and had an “extensive role” in torturing detainees. Even more troubling, she “had run a secret prison in Thailand” – part of the CIA’s network of “black sites” – “where two detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh techniques.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture also detailed the central role she played in the particularly gruesome torture of detainee Abu Zubaydah.
Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations [violating multiple court orders as well the demands of the 9/11 Commission].
Philly.com
So that earned her a promotion. Sure. Why not.As John Brennan moved into the CIA director’s office this month, another high-level transition was taking place down the hall.
A week earlier, a woman had been placed in charge of the CIA’s clandestine service for the first time in the agency’s history. She is a veteran officer with broad support inside the agency. But she also helped run the CIA’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and signed off on the 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of prisoners being subjected to treatment critics have called torture.
WaPo
He was a supporter of the torture program himself. I'm sure he'll figure something out. Or...if she were a man, he would.The woman, who remains undercover and cannot be named, was put in the top position on an acting basis when the previous chief retired last month. The question of whether to give her the job permanently poses an early quandary for Brennan, who is already struggling to distance the agency from the decade-old controversies.
