Pro Publica has admitted that a story they ran last year that accused president trump’s nominee to head the CIA was wrong and they have retracted the story.
They made the claim in that article that she was in charge of a secret prison in Thailand and oversaw the waterboarding of terrorist Abu Zubaydah 83 times. After the New York Times investigated the accusation they found that Trump’s pick Gina Haspel didn’t even arrive at the prison until well after those waterboardings took place, Pro Publica came clean and admitted that their original story was false.
That should make her confirmation a little easier.
There is one thing that could put a crimp in the nomination process if the Democrats decide to be mean and petty. (What are the odds of that?) Once back in Washington, she was ordered to destroy the tapes of the torture of prisoners to prevent CIA operatives from being exposed. No doubt Democrats will say it was a cover-up.
It’s funny that the Democrats claim that Trump hates women, gays, and transgenders but every time he has nominated people in those three categories, it’s the Democrats who shut them down.
Civil rights groups have said Ms. Haspel will have to answer questions about her involvement in the black site’s operation, and some had directly tied her to the Zubaydah interrogation.
Democrats with knowledge of the situation had been more circumspect, saying instead that she had been involved in controversial activities she would have to explain during her confirmation hearing.
Waterboarding, widely considered to be torture, is now prohibited as an interrogation technique by American agencies.
But the main reason that Democrats will try to stop Haspel from becoming the first woman to head the CIA is that they don’t want Trump to get credit for the move.