Haspel to tell senators she will not restart CIA interrogation program: report

Gina Haspel, President Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, will pledge to senators during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday not to restart a controversial interrogation program if she’s confirmed as the agency’s director, according to a new report.

In excerpts of her prepared remarks obtained by The Washington Post, Haspel will seek to preemptively assure the Senate Intelligence Committee that she has no plans to reimplement the brutal enhanced interrogation techniques used by the agency years ago to question terror suspects. 

Haspel has come under fire from many lawmakers — mostly Democrats — for her ties to the interrogation program, particularly stemming from her oversight of a black site detention facility in Thailand in 2002, where a suspected al Qaeda operative was waterboarded. 

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According to her prepared remarks, Haspel plans to emphasize her “personal commitment, clearly and without reservation,” not to restart the interrogation program, the Post reported. 

Haspel has also come under fire from lawmakers amid questions about the extent of her involvement in a decision to destroy videotapes of interrogations while she was serving as chief of staff to former CIA Director Jose Rodriguez. 

Rodriguez was the one who ordered the tapes destroyed. 

Within the CIA itself, Haspel is well-regarded. On Tuesday, three dozen former national security officials and lawmakers signed on to a letter endorsing Haspel for the top CIA job, and the agency has aggressively lobbied to build public support for her nomination.