Free Republic

President Trump’s nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the C.I.A. has revived debate over the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program and still-murky questions about her involvement. Now, on the eve of her Senate confirmation hearing, a striking voice is trying to join that fray: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Mr. Mohammed, the principal architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured in March 2003 and tortured by the C.I.A. This week, he asked a military judge at Guantánamo Bay for permission to share six paragraphs of information about Ms. Haspel with the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ms. Haspel ran a black-site prison in...

After weekend reports that President Donald Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, was considering withdrawing her name from consideration, Jeremy Bash flatly refuted those talking points on Kasie DC. He had a pretty decent source on the subject, too. It was Ms. Haspel herself. Bash told viewers at he had just got off the phone with Haspel and that she was "full steam ahead" and will be at her confirmation hearing Wednesday morning. Furthermore, on the call she emphasized that her lengthy career of more than 30 years and seven overseas tours provided her with the key experience needed for...

The White House is ramping up an 11th-hour effort to build support for President Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, just days before she is scheduled to face a grilling from the Senate Intelligence Committee over her role in the agency’s controversial detention and interrogation program. For weeks, the CIA has led the charge on promoting now-deputy director Gina Haspel—a forward-leaning PR campaign that some critics have said is inappropriate for the clandestine agency. Only late last week did the White House stand up the kind of broad-based press campaign typical of other high-stakes nominations, issuing a swath of laudatory...

WASHINGTON – Countering resistance to President Donald Trump's pick for CIA director, the spy agency gave lawmakers a declassified memo Friday showing she was cleared years ago of wrongdoing in the destruction of videotapes showing terror suspects being waterboarded after 9/11. Gina Haspel is facing opposition from some Democrats and rights groups critical of her activities related to the shredding of 92 videotapes in 2005 and her overall role in the CIA's harsh interrogation program, which critics have portrayed as one of the shadiest chapters in the agency's history. Friday's release, however, did not satisfy opponents who want to know...

Activists seeking to derail President Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA are looking to Sen. John McCain to cast the deciding vote against her — assuming he is well enough to return to Washington. The 81-year-old Republican was diagnosed with brain cancer in July and last cast a vote in the Senate on early December before he returned home to Arizona for treatment. He underwent surgery in Phoenix for an intestinal infection on April 15. Haspel's critics are counting on McCain to speak out against her nomination, even if he can't cast a vote on the Senate...

Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick to succeed Mike Pompeo as head of the CIA, is a thirty-year veteran of the agency, one well respected by intelligence professionals from both parties. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to run our most important security agency. But despite this feminist victory, the Dems are likely to muddy the waters at her confirmation hearings by smearing her with allegations she oversaw “torture” at a black site in Thailand in 2002. Typical of what we can expect is the New York Times editorial titled, “Having a Torturer Lead the CIA,” even as the charge...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

Trump’s CIA Pick is the Great Feminist Moment the Left Hates Does real feminism look like Linda Sarsour, Hillary Clinton or the first female CIA head? March 16, 2018 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. “2018 will be the year of women,” CNN declared last year. What was the greatest achievement of women in ’17 and ’18? Ask the media and they’ll tell you that it’s Hillary Clinton running on her husband’s name and losing an election before blaming it...

ProPublica has issued a correction for mistakenly saying in an article that Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, was involved with the treatment a terror suspect and falsely stated she mocked the suspect. Although Haspel, who has been with the CIA since 1985, was in charge of a covert CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were subject to waterboarding and other interrogation methods in 2002, the ProPublica story falsely stated she was directly involved with the torture of a prisoner by the name of Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah was waterboarded at the CIA prison on 83 occasions. “It...

Rand Paul launched a typically obnoxious attack on Gina Haspel today. Here is one account: “To really appoint the head cheerleader for waterboarding to be head of the CIA? How can you trust somebody who did that to be in charge of the CIA,” Paul wondered, adding, “To read of her glee during the waterboarding is just absolutely appalling.” Paul was referring to an account of a waterboarding session with suspected al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques now widely considered to be torture. ., . The problem is that this conduct appears to...

RUSH: Let’s turn to the nomination of Gina Haspel. Gina Haspel has been chosen by Trump to be the director of the CIA. She’s been the deputy director for a number of years, and the way the CIA and the Department of Justice in many ways… The way they’re structured is that the deputy… At the CIA especially, the deputy is the day-to-day operations director. There is a director of operations, but the deputy director is generally the lifer who has reams and reams of CIA experience in the field, at Langley, and basically is in the know of pretty...

GOP Senator Rand Paul publicly announced his total opposition to President Trump’s nominees to head the State Department and the CIA on Wednesday; saying he’s “going to do everything” he can to block them from office. According to Politico, the outspoken Senator revealed his intentions while speaking with reporters at the US Capitol, saying people “complain sometimes about the filibuster” but added he plans to use the procedural maneuver to derail the nomination process. “People complain sometimes about the filibuster, they complain about trying to obstruct… “I’m going to do everything I can to block them,” said Paul. “I’m perplexed...

Don't listen to those (like this CNN editorial masquerading as reporting) complaining that she was too tough on terrorists. Gina Haspel is a great choice to replace Mike Pompeo as CIA director. First off, she knows the nuts and bolts of human intelligence from the inside out. As a career CIA officer in the agency’s operations (or spying) arm, Haspel spent the early part of her career recruiting agents in the field to give their secrets to the U.S. But after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Haspel played a supervisory role at a CIA black site in Thailand and...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday condemned President Trump's decision to nominate Gina Haspel to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), saying she was involved in "one of darkest chapters in American history." While he expressed confidence in current CIA Director Mike Pompeo's ability to serve as secretary of State, an appointment Trump announced earlier Tuesday, McCain said in a statement that Haspel needs to explain her stance on torture. "The torture of detainees in U.S. custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history," McCain said. "Ms. Haspel needs to explain...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday named Gina Haspel as the first woman head of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Trump also replaced US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo.