Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told reporters on Wednesday that he will try to declassify as much information as possible about Gina Haspel, the nominee to lead the CIA, who was involved in the agency’s torture program.
“We want to declassify as much as possible without jeopardizing someone’s what we call sources and methods,” Coats told reporters, according to Politico. “Every effort will be made to explain fully what her role was.”
Haspel played a key role in the CIA’s secret torture program, overseeing the torture of at least one terrorism suspect in a CIA prison in Thailand. She also helped destroy video tapes of torture sessions carried out at the prison.
Given Haspel’s background, senators have demanded that the CIA release information on Haspel’s role in the torture program, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has come out against her nomination.
Coats defended Haspel to reporters on Wednesday.
“Gina plans to be totally transparent in regards to this issue, and a lot of that has been mischaracterized,” he said, per Politico. “What is being alleged is simply not true.”
Okay. Give us the proof.
I am particularly interested in her role in destroying evidence (tapes) of one guy being waterboarded over 80 times while under her supervision. And the destruction order was directly from her. The optics of this order are “covering her own tracks.” Bad optics.
I would like to understand how this has been “mischaracterized”…
I wasn’t there when it all happened. As I understand it she’s respected by her peers. But this seems like a very wrong person at a very wrong time. This nation is under attack and was almost certainly betrayed by the people in the administration who chose this candidate. That’s a black mark right there. And we’re still living down the torture. Putting a torturer in charge doesn’t really help with that. We need people leading our investigative services about whose integrity there is no possible question.
You speak the truth. The reality is that for this administration “integrity” is a word and a concept which simply do not exist.
Funny, Trump said the same thing…
Although, since “integrity” is not a word in trump’s vocabulary, he instead used the word “loyalty”…
I’ve never heard him talk about right and wrong in a way that suggested he had any real understanding of the concept. A more intelligent narcissist would at least understand the idea as others saw it. The trouble with Trump is he’s not smart enough to fool people who aren’t credulous chumps. He never was.