Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) offered measured support for Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to be the next CIA director, despite her background overseeing one of the agency’s “black site” prisons.
“The fact is that that was then, and now is now,” said Nelson, a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He noted that the extraordinary rendition program put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks was now banned.
“They were operating under what was the accepted practice of the day,” Nelson said.
Haspel can expect tough questions during her confirmation hearing on the role she played in the torture of prisoners, several senators said.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said his “inclination is to support her because I think she’s well qualified.”
“I just want to make sure she understands the laws that exist today that did not exist back then [that] would outlaw the behavior in question,” he said.
Click on the video above to hear the senators in their own words.