President Trump’s choice of Gina Haspel for CIA Director is receiving praise from even the President’s strongest critics as Haspel’s controversial role in secret CIA torture prisons is causing a stir in some circles.
Haspel is the first ever woman to run the CIA.
Prolific Trump critic James Clapper praised the President for previously choosing Haspel as Deputy Director.
“It speaks well of him for picking a seasoned veteran of the agency who is widely and deeply respected by the workforce as well as those outside the agency. She has also been a strong proponent for integration, not only within CIA, but across the intelligence community.”
Haspel has worked for the CIA for over thirty years, and during that time, she has played a key role in the agency’s torture program.
According to Fox News:
“Haspel reportedly ran the CIA’s first overseas detention site in Thailand, where imprisoned militants were repeatedly waterboarded, The New York Times reported in February 2017…
Haspel briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to former U.S. intelligence officials.
“Zubayadah alone was waterboarded 83 times in a single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into walls and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful information to provide,” The Times reported.
She also helped carry out an order that the CIA destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.”
