[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2579-S2580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Gina Haspel

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, earlier today the Senate Select Committee 
on Intelligence heard from the President's pick for Director of the 
Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel. Actually, we had an open 
hearing this morning, and I just returned from a recently concluded 
closed hearing, during which classified information was shared with the 
committee and discussed with the nominee.
  As we know, the President's nominees for various positions have been 
the victims of hearsay, innuendo, and rumor. Thankfully, Ms. Haspel had 
the opportunity today to respond to some of the questions--and attacks, 
really--that have been posed against her in the public. She has now had 
a chance to respond, and I thought she did so with tremendous 
knowledge, grace, and the kind of temperament you would hope for in a 
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
  She exemplified the core attributes we have come to know about her 
since she was nominated: professional integrity, an innate sense of 
loyalty to her country, and a strong drive to work hard, not just for 
the advancement of her individual career but also to protect Americans 
and put our national security first.
  The fact that she is here today, as President Trump's nominee to 
become the first female Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is 
a testament to both her character and her exceptional, decades-long 
career as an intelligence professional.
  All the while, she has endeared herself to her colleagues in the 
intelligence community, who have an immense amount of respect for her 
and her work. In fact, in addition to being the first female Director 
of the Central Intelligence Agency, Ms. Haspel would be the first 
operations officer in perhaps 40 years or more. In other words, at the 
CIA they have analysts, they have people who do operations, who are 
case officers and who do intelligence work, and, then, they have other 
people who perform technical intelligence activity. She would be the 
first in 40 years to actually have worked in some of the hot spots 
around the world that I will mention more about here in a moment.
  Yesterday, I spoke about some aspects of her career, about some of 
the pieces that our colleagues across the aisle have left out of the 
picture, which, in fairness, should be painted in full context so 
people can understand that her career, spanning 33 years, is far more 
than a couple of anecdotes or caricatures of her experience. In other 
words, she is not defined by those experiences. Although, as she has 
said today, we have all learned from those experiences.
  Her 33 years of service showcase an unparalleled commitment to the 
Central Intelligence Agency and a devotion to the rule of law. She 
understands that when the intelligence agencies don't follow the rules 
of the road, somebody is going to be held to account for it at a later 
time. In this case, ironically, having followed the rule of law, we 
find that some of our colleagues from across the aisle want to 
relitigate decades-old incidents after the fact of 9/11, where, relying 
on the premier legal authorities in the country from the Department of 
Justice and having received orders from the Commander in Chief, they 
simply did their job and now are being questioned in a way that 
suggests they did something less than honorable, when, in fact, they 
did exactly what they were asked to do.
  The fact is that here in America we have not seen a follow-on attack 
from 9/11. I mentioned yesterday a book I was reviewing that reminded 
me that in the days following 9/11, on which 3,000 people died--some at 
the Pentagon, where one plane crashed, and two others crashed at the 
World Trade Center--there was some chatter about a potential nuclear 
device getting into the hands of al-Qaida, the same people who took 
down the two towers and hit the Pentagon.
  That would have been catastrophic, obviously. Thankfully, as a result 
of the good investigatory work and intelligence collection that the 
intelligence community acquired, we learned that those rumors did not 
end up proving to be true. But that sort of sets the tone for the 
environment and attitude that many had about the potential for follow-
on attacks, which would have been tremendously devastating.
  It is a strange business that we ask our intelligence officials to 
play to the edge of the law--in other words, to follow the law but to 
be aggressive, to be forward-leaning to prevent these attacks. Then, 
when they do exactly that, we come back years later, when we are 
feeling safe and secure, and say: Well, you went too far.
  We can imagine what it would have been like if there had been another 
follow-on attack during which American citizens were killed. We can 
imagine that our intelligence community would be criticized for 
allowing that to happen, for somehow not stopping it, finding out about 
it, and preventing it.
  Unfortunately, too many people have 20/20 hindsight and are engaged 
in second-guessing. Frankly, for people who serve honorably in the 
intelligence community, it seems like a lose-lose proposition: Do too 
much and prevent an attack, and we will criticize you. Don't do enough 
and an attack occurs, and we will criticize you for that.
  Suffice it to say that in all respects, during her career Gina Haspel 
has acted in accordance with the law, as determined by the Department 
of Justice. By the way, the Supreme Court of the United States is not 
going to hand out an opinion in a case where the executive branch has 
to act. Opinions handed down by the Office of Legal Counsel in the 
Justice Department are the authoritative legal guidance for executive 
branch agencies like the CIA.
  Ms. Haspel has worked in assignments from Africa and Europe, and she 
has been posted to dangerous capitals around the world. She has been 
shot at, survived a coup d'etat, and run clandestine assets against 
hard targets.
  Those who have worked with her say her management skills and 
integrity are unmatched. That is why she served as a station chief, the 
Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, and Deputy 
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency itself. All of this 
experience is extraordinary and it is important, and it is exactly what 
our country needs in this uncertain time.
  Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified in 
recent memory that, in his 50 years in the intelligence business, he 
has never before seen such a diverse array of threats confronting our 
country--from North Korea to Iran, to Russia, to China, to the 
terrorism threat, to domestic home-grown terrorist attacks inspired by 
social media and online activity from overseas.
  America clearly needs someone with the deep expertise and 
understanding of the Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence 
community and someone who doesn't have to get up to speed. Americans 
need someone with extensive counterterrorism experience who has worked 
with difficult and hostile intelligence services and, I would say, also 
with our friends and allies around the world. Some of the relationships 
we have with other countries, like Britain, are some of the most 
important relationships we have--government to government, intelligence 
community to intelligence community. Ms. Haspel has the admiration and 
respect of those coalition agencies around the world.
  She may well be the most qualified person ever to be nominated for 
the role of CIA Director. But we saw today in the hearing that there is 
a determination by some to relitigate the past. We saw an attempt to 
relitigate issues that have been closed for a long time, going on 17, 
almost 20 years.
  There were questions about Ms. Haspel's role in counterterrorism 
efforts in the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I 
am not questioning the questions, but I am questioning using some of 
these issues as pretext to block or to vote against her nomination. She 
was accused of making decisions that clearly were made by her 
supervisor, when it came to getting rid of videotapes because of 
concerns for the safety and security of the intelligence officers 
depicted on those videotapes, even though there were verbatim cables of 
the activity on the tapes. Obviously, in this case, the

[[Page S2580]]

decision to destroy the tapes was not hers but her supervisor's, who 
took full responsibility for that.
  As I said, it is easy here today, in the safety and security of 2018, 
to remember what the post-9/11 climate was like. It is easy to second-
guess the legal guidance that had been provided to our intelligence 
professionals at the time, which they relied upon in good faith. It is 
easy to overlook the considerable pressure placed on the Agency at that 
time. As I said, if they didn't do enough, we would criticize them. If 
they did too much, we would criticize them for that. So it is a fine 
thin line they had to walk, which they did with incredible skill and 
determination.
  I would say it is nothing less than obscene to hold someone to a 
standard that was set after their actions were performed, in good-faith 
reliance on the law, as determined at the time they did act. In this 
case, two different Justice Departments--one under President Bush and 
one under President Obama--conducted investigations, exonerated Ms. 
Haspel, and chose not to proceed against her or her colleagues at the 
CIA.
  The fact is that early on Congress was briefed on a regular basis and 
approved of the activities in which she was engaged when it came to the 
enhanced interrogation program, which she herself did not directly 
participate in but which occurred during her time in the 
counterterrorism center.
  That Congress decided after the fact to change some of those policies 
does not make the prior implementation of the policies improper at all. 
Indeed, it was her professional obligation to carry them out, and it 
was not for her or her fellow officers to second-guess the legality of 
those policies. At the time at issue, Ms. Haspel was a GS-15, which is 
a civil service ranking that would be the equivalent of either a major 
or lieutenant colonel. It is as if saying that as for decisions made by 
the Commander in Chief, where a lieutenant colonel participated in 
executing those orders, that somehow they were responsible for the 
policy decision made by the Commander in Chief in the military. It just 
doesn't make any sense at all. As long as our military and intelligence 
officials rely in good faith on the best legal guidance given to them 
at the time, they should be free to conduct their activities and not be 
second-guessed later on.
  Some have now gone so far as to complain her full personnel file has 
not been released. As I said, Ms. Haspel has the unique qualification 
of having served 33 years essentially undercover, and she has 
participated in some of the most sensitive intelligence activities our 
country is engaged in. The idea that now we would jeopardize the 
sources, the methods, and the alliances we had at that time just so 
colleagues could display that in full public view strikes me as 
terribly misguided.
  It is true that in the Intelligence Committee we did have a 
classified hearing, at which all of those matters were aired, but in an 
appropriate setting, protecting that important sensitive information, 
which is absolutely critical to keeping the country safe. The idea that 
we ought to release her full personnel file, including sensitive 
operations, to jeopardize the safety of other officers and expose 
sensitive sources and methods of intelligence collection is to risk 
national security itself. Some of our colleagues are suggesting that 
this happen, but they simply know better, and they should know better.
  You saw a stark difference at the hearing today between those who 
wish to ensure we have the most qualified person leading the CIA and 
those who have determined to obstruct President Trump's nominees at all 
cost. In fact, during my time questioning Ms. Haspel, I mentioned a 
national security expert who said, if Ms. Haspel had been nominated by 
President Obama, it would be an easy call, but because she was 
nominated by President Trump, and ironically happens to be the first 
woman nominated to this important position as Director of the CIA, for 
some reason, now we are going to hold her and President Trump to 
another standard, a double standard.
  If people were really listening, they would have heard Ms. Haspel 
confirm what many of us have been saying about her all along; that she 
is the right person for this job. We learned that former Defense 
Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta and former Director of National 
Director James Clapper, both former Obama officials, unequivocally 
support Ms. Haspel. We have heard from Michael Hayden, John Brennan, 
both former CIA Directors. Both have criticized President Trump for 
other matters but praised this pick to head the Agency.
  We read about this nominee, too, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial 
board penned its support, writing:

       [T]he people misrepresenting the CIA nominee were in the 
     cheap seats during the worst days of the war on terror. Ms. 
     Haspel didn't have that luxury.

  I couldn't agree more with that characterization. Yet some of our 
colleagues simply refuse to listen. In fact, we have been seeing this 
same pattern play out throughout the Trump Presidency--people playing 
politics and obstructing the nominees of the President simply because 
they disagree with the President, not because of the qualifications of 
the nominees. Sadly, we have seen character assassination against 
nominees who have subsequently withdrawn because they have simply been 
unwilling to go through the process and see the destruction of a 
reputation they have worked a lifetime for. It is our Nation's loss 
that good people withdraw from the process rather than go through that 
sort of character assassination.
  The Senate has a duty, after all, to ensure that our country has 
well-qualified people at the head of our national security agencies 
like the Central Intelligence Agency. While Ms. Haspel's credentials 
are certainly more than sufficient to support her nomination against 
some of the baseless claims we have heard, there is just as important a 
case to be made for her that is based on upholding the CIA as an 
institution.
  Two lawyers who formerly served in the White House Counsel's office 
and the Justice Department, David Rivkin and Lee Casey, wrote in the 
Wall Street Journal: ``If agents are blamed following the directives of 
their superiors, the CIA's ability to protect the U.S. will be 
fundamentally compromised.''
  I agree. We want our intelligence officers to be as aggressive as 
they can within the confines of the law, collecting and analyzing 
intelligence they can then provide to policymakers so we can keep our 
country safe. We ought to, at least for a while, put a hold on the 
politics of obstructing nominees, particularly at a national security 
post, so we can put Americans' safety first.
  We have to ask ourselves, in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous 
time, what does the CIA mean to the national security of the United 
States? For an agency at the very forefront of protecting our country's 
citizens, what type of person do we want at the helm? I believe we want 
a person like Ms. Haspel. It is Ms. Haspel--short and sweet--who I 
think fits the mold of that sort of person we want.
  I urge our colleagues to rethink what they are doing here, to shift 
gears and support this nominee who is so well-qualified and so devoted 
to protecting our country. Can you imagine the individual sacrifices 
intelligence officers who serve undercover have to make--the sort of 
strain on relationships when they are deployed abroad like our military 
is and the hardships they have to sustain, but they do it because they 
love our country and they are dedicated to keeping the American people 
safe. Those sort of people--that kind of character, that kind of 
integrity--ought to be rewarded and not criticized and punished.
  As I said, I urge our colleagues to rethink what we are doing and 
shift gears and support this qualified nominee. She is exactly what the 
American people deserve, so let's get her confirmed.