Senate Confirms Gina Haspel as First Female director of CIA
WASHINGTON(TIP): History was made on May 17 when US Senate confirmed Gina Haspel as the first female director of CIA.
After a protracted confirmation battle that resurrected a nationwide debate about the agency’s post-9/11 use of enhanced interrogation techniques — thought by many to have constituted torture — Gina Haspel will officially become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. She is the first operations officer in more than five decades – and the first-ever woman – to be named to the role. On Thursday, May 17, the Senate voted, 54-45, to confirm Haspel, one day after the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a 10-5 vote, reported her nomination favorably. Overall, six Democrats voted in support of her candidacy; two Republicans, Sens. Flake and Paul opposed it.
President Trump nominated Haspel to the post in March, in a tweet, while announcing that her predecessor, former CIA director Mike Pompeo, was being tapped to lead the State Department.
Much of Haspel’s 30-year career at CIA was spent in the clandestine service and remains classified. Her reported oversight, in 2002, of a secret “black site” in Thailand — where detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding — generated widespread controversy and ardent condemnation from civil rights groups. Her involvement in ordering the destruction, in 2005, of 92 videotapes – some of which documented the interrogations — while serving as chief of staff to then-Director of the clandestine service Jose Rodriguez was also roundly criticized.
Among those opposed was Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who survived years of torture as a POW in Vietnam, and who, as he undergoes treatment for brain cancer, was not present for the floor vote. Last week McCain issued a powerful statement opposing Haspel’s candidacy, calling her role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans “disturbing.”
