Washington Post: Trump CIA pick ‘fails the test’

The Washington Post’s editorial board slammed President Trump’s pick for CIA director, Gina Haspel, in an op-ed Thursday, saying she failed “the test” during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday.

The editorial board called on Haspel to formally denounce enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which are now deemed illegal, and to confirm that she would never follow orders to perform those acts again — even if they are legal and ordered by the president.  

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“Ms. Haspel did not meet that test,” the board wrote. “She eventually said she ‘would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal.’ What she would not say is that the torture she oversaw was immoral, or that it should not have been done, or that she regretted her own role in it — which, according to senators, included advocating for the program internally.”

The board went on to say that if it weren’t for Haspel’s history relating to torture, she would easily be confirmed. 

Haspel has faced a barrage of questions and sharp criticism for her connections to a brutal CIA detention and interrogation program under George W. Bush’s administration. At least one prisoner, an al Qaeda operative, was waterboarded at a black site detention facility she oversaw in Thailand in 2002.

“Were it not for what Ms. Haspel herself called the ‘shadow’ of the interrogation program, her confirmation would likely be an easy call even in this time of partisan polarization,” the board wrote, citing Haspel’s extensive experience working at dangerous posts, volunteering for the CIA’s counterterrorism center on Sept. 11, 2001, and her support from many former Obama administration officials. 

Early on in her hearing, Haspel told the committee on Wednesday that she would not to bring back the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program, addressing a key point on her record that Democrats and other critics have scrutinized. 

“I can offer you my personal commitment, clearly and without reservation, that under my leadership, on my watch, the CIA will not restart a detention and interrogation program,” Haspel said.