Live Blog: Chasing ‘Bloody Gina’

Thought I’d put this up for those of us following the Senate hearings for the CIA DIrector.  This is an extremely important hearing as it continues to ask us to define who we are as a country.  KKKremlin Caligula has a history of loving the idea of torture.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that waterboarding “works.” But scientists say otherwise. Research has shown that the stress and pain caused by techniques like waterboarding can hinder a person from recalling information.

The president, who made similar claims on the campaign trail, said in a Jan. 25 interviewwith ABC News’ David Muir when asked about waterboarding, “Absolutely I feel it works.” He said that “I have spoken to others in intelligence. And they are big believers in, as an example, waterboarding. … Because they say it does work. It does work.”

A day later, in a Jan. 26 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump called waterboarding “just short of torture,” and said, “I will tell you, though, it works. And I just spoke to people who told me it worked, and that’s what they do.” Trump and Hannity also agreed that neither of them had “even a doubt that it works.”

This is a test of how we view our public servants and how they respond to requests to violate our standing laws.

 From The Daily Beast:

” ‘JUST A SYMPTOM’
‘She Should Have Fought Back. Other People Did’: Inside Gina Haspel’s Black Site
Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri’s attorneys say Donald Trump’s pick for CIA director is disqualified by her role in brutality and disrespect for the law.v “

“Under the Convention Against Torture that the U.S. is a party to, we’re obligated to pursue and prosecute torturers, not give them promotions. What does it say to the world that the person who may have been directly responsible, and certainly was indirectly responsible for this torture, who never stood up and said ‘Don’t do it,’ is now the person who might be leading the very agency we know committed that torture?”

Hollander’s client was tortured at a black site in Thailand that Haspel ran in late 2002. Declassified CIA documents indicate that Nashiri’s torture, which his attorneys say has left lasting mental damage, was controversial within the agency. But those documents provide no indication that Haspel opposed it, let alone stopped it—particularly when CIA headquarters pushed to intensify the torture at a subsequent black site. Interrogators who didn’t work directly for Haspel even engaged in a miniature revolt over torture that they considered egregious.

“The person we know most about, whom the [Senate torture report] called the ‘chief interrogator,’ he’s the only person we’re expressly aware protested Nashiri’s torture—after torturing Nashiri for quite awhile,” said Michel Paradis, a senior counsel with the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions who has aided Nashiri’s defense. “That’s the only one we’ve found from the black sites.”

Haspel goes before the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday morning and leaked excerpts of her opening statement indicate she will tell the panel that “under my leadership, CIA will not restart such a detention and interrogation program.” But her nomination is so far from assured, even after an intense and unusual public push from the CIA to confirm the three-decade agency veteran, that she considered quitting late last week. While the agency has emphasized everything about Haspel’s career except torture—pushing her basketball fandom and a pre-torture meeting with Mother Teresa—Trump, a vocal torture enthusiast, indicated that he considered her torture record, or “being too tough on terrorists,” a virtue.

From WAPO; ‘Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick to lead CIA, pledges she won’t restart interrogation program’.

Gina Haspel told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that she “will not restart” the CIA’s brutal interrogation program if confirmed to lead the agency, and that she would obey her moral compass, not President Trump, if she is ever instructed to carry out other questionable activities.

“My moral compass is strong,” Haspel said, as the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), pressed her to define “your moral code.”

“I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that is immoral, even if it is technically legal. I would absolutely not permit it,” Haspel continued. “I believe CIA must undertake activities that are consistent with American values.”

Senators have asked several of Trump’s Cabinet nominees to commit to stand up to the president, and inform Congress if he were to pressure them to do anything legally or morally questionable. But the pledge takes on extra significance with Haspel, whose hearing centered around the role she played in the CIA’s interrogation program — something Trump said on the campaign trail he wouldn’t mind bringing back into practice.

Haspel told senators that she doubted the president would ever ask her to waterboard a suspect, stressing that experience had shown that the “CIA is not the right place to conduct interrogations” as it does not have the proper expertise.

The WAPO site is livecasting the hearing.

Please add what you think about all of this.