CIA/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The career Central Intelligence Agency officer picked by President Donald Trump to run the agency faced fresh questions Tuesday [3-13-18] from lawmakers over her role in the CIA’s interrogation program following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Gina Haspel, 61 years old, is the agency’s current deputy director, and she would become the first woman to serve as CIA director if she wins approval from the Senate… Ms. Haspel began at the CIA in 1985 and held senior assignments in the agency’s clandestine-operations division before being elevated to deputy director last year (no Senate confirmation was needed).
She was part of a team that oversaw the CIA’s detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists, using techniques that many experts and lawmakers since have described as torture, current and former officials have said. Her nomination already raised concerns from some lawmakers on Capitol Hill and among human-rights groups…
Ms. Haspel was in the clandestine service most of her career, meaning her public record was nonexistent until last year when she became the deputy director. Clandestine operators are so secret that the CIA doesn’t even publicize their names when they get killed. Rather they are recognized with the addition of a star on a memorial inside the building headquarters, and their identities as CIA operatives often aren’t disclosed until decades later. When Ms. Haspel was named to the deputy director job last year and emerged year with a face and name, she had no prior record of public appearances or writings and no social-media history. She has subsequently kept a low public profile in her job as deputy director. As a result, her positions and expected handling of her confirmation hearing are clouded in mystery, even among CIA agents.”
-Nancy A. Youssef, “Gina Haspel, Nominee for CIA, to Face Questions Over Interrogation Techniques,” The Wall Street Journal online, Mar. 13, 2018 05:48pm