The White House said Monday that Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA, is “100 percent committed” to winning Senate confirmation amid reports that she offered to back out of the nomination last weekend.
“Her commitment to the agency is one of the reasons that she is the right person to lead it,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “She wants to do everything she can to make sure that the integrity of the CIA remains intact.”
Ms. Haspel, currently deputy director at the CIA, reportedly offered to withdraw her name amid questions about her role in the agency’s “enhanced interrogation” of terrorism suspects after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
She faces a confirmation hearing Wednesday with the Senate Intelligence Committee in her bid to replace Mike Pompeo, the administration’s new secretary of state.
Asked about reports that Ms. Haspel offered to withdraw, Mrs. Sanders said the nominee wanted to make sure that the CIA “isn’t unnecessarily attacked, and if she felt that her nomination would have been a problem … then she wanted to do everything she could to protect the agency.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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