Trump’s Pick for New CIA Chief Dogged by Secret Prisons

Gina Haspel, the veteran CIA undercover officer President Donald Trump picked on Tuesday to head the agency, is supported by many in the U.S. intelligence community but has faced criticism for overseeing a secret CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured.

Intelligence officers who served with her, and congressional officials said that in 2002, during Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, she was responsible for the secret prison code-named “Cat’s Eye.” Two suspected members of the al Qaeda militant group were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques at the facility.

Three years later, still during Bush’s presidency, she carried out an order to destroy videotapes of the waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is considered a form of torture, according to those people.

Democrats voiced opposition, including their top person on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who said senators had “a lot of questions” about Haspel and they “deserved to have those questions answered, in an open hearing setting.”

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