WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CIA (all times local):
10:31 a.m.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a leading Democratic voice against the CIA’s now-defunct harsh detention and interrogation program, says she will vote against confirming President Donald Trump’s pick to be CIA director.
Feinstein and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who also is against Gina Haspel’s confirmation, led efforts to make harsh interrogation techniques against the law.
Haspel’s confirmation is controversial because she was once chief of a black site base in Thailand and advocated for the destruction of videotapes of interrogations of terror suspects after 9/11.
Feinstein said Thursday that confirming Haspel would signal that the U.S. approves of what happened after 9/11 and she absolutely does not.
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine say they’ll support Haspel.
__
1:12 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee says she doesn’t believe torture works as an interrogation technique and that her “strong moral compass” would prevent her from carrying out any presidential order she found objectionable.
The acting director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was responding to questions Wednesday from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Haspel said she would not permit the spy agency to restart the kind of harsh detention and interrogation program it ran at black sites after Sept. 11.
Asked how she would respond if Trump ordered her to do something she found morally objectionable, Haspel said she wouldn’t allow the CIA to undertake such activity even if it was technically legal.
She added that she doesn’t think Trump would ask the CIA to resume waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.