CIA/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, looking to shore up support before a confirmation vote this week, asserted that her agency shouldn’t have undertaken a program of detention and interrogation that many critics say amounted to torture. Gina Haspel wrote in a letter released Tuesday [5-15-18] that the post-9/11 program aimed at extracting intelligence from terrorism suspects ‘ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world…’ Ms. Haspel’s comments in the letter on the interrogation program, earlier reported by CNN, are a step further than her remarks last week in a public hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The intelligence committee will vote on her nomination Wednesday in a closed session after which she will be considered by the full Senate, a committee aide said. She is expected to clear the Senate Intelligence Committee with the support of at least one Democrat, according to public commitments by members of the panel.”
-Byron Tau, “Gina Haspel Says CIA Shouldn’t Have Run Interrogation Program,” The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2018 1:08 pm