[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 81 (Thursday, May 17, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2748-S2750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
resume executive session and consideration of the Haspel nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I thank our friend, the chairman of the 
committee, the Senator from North Carolina.
  We have gone through a lot over the last couple of years, and I 
appreciate the fact that in terms of timing, he is going to allow me to 
speak first on Gina Haspel.
  Gina Haspel is among the most qualified people to be nominated for 
the position of the Director of the CIA. She has served with the Agency 
for 33 years, including tours as a Case Officer, four times as a 
Station Chief, the Deputy Chief of National Resources Division, the 
Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, and currently as 
the Deputy Director of the Agency. In many ways, her story is 
representative of the thousands of people at the Agency and throughout 
the intelligence community who serve quietly, without recognition, and 
often at great personal risk in order to keep our Nation safe from 
those who wish to do us harm.
  In addition, while she has not emphasized this, we should not 
overlook the historic nature of Ms. Haspel's nomination as the first 
woman to be nominated as Director of the CIA. Seeing her portrait in 
the halls of the Agency next to the long line of former Directors will 
be a long overdue but important breakthrough for the intelligence 
community.
  I would also note that as a Senator from Virginia, the home to 
thousands of CIA personnel and the vice chairman of the Intelligence 
Committee, I have heard from many Agency officers--and for that matter, 
members of the rank and file of other intelligence community agencies--
and almost to a person, the rank and file have supported her 
nomination.
  Let me be clear. This has not been an easy decision for me. Over the 
past several weeks, I have held multiple meetings and calls with Ms. 
Haspel and many others about her record and her character. In our open 
hearing, I raised questions about her involvement with the rendition, 
detention, and interrogation program and, if she were to be confirmed, 
her willingness to push back if President Trump asked her to undertake 
any immoral or legally questionable activity. I questioned her 
willingness to declassify, to the extent possible, more information 
about her background at the Agency. I still wish more could be done to 
discuss her background in an open setting. The Agency just recently has 
declassified more information about her service with the 
counterterrorism center. I thank them for that but still believe it 
would have been preferable if we could have found a way to be even more 
transparent. If she is confirmed as Director, I would encourage Ms. 
Haspel to keep this in mind.
  To those here who have concluded that Ms. Haspel's background with 
the RDI program should preclude her from leading the CIA, well, I 
respect their arguments, and I know the passion with which they put 
forward their position. I myself struggled with this point.
  Many people at the CIA participated in the program. They were told it 
was legal by the Justice Department and ordered by the President, but 
some of the actions undertaken were repugnant and amounted to torture. 
Since those days, America has had a long debate about the standards 
that we, as a nation, can and should apply to the treatment of 
detainees regardless of who they might be. That is why I was one of the 
17 cosponsors in the Senate of the McCain-Feinstein amendment to 
prohibit torture and to prohibit any interrogation techniques not 
authorized by the U.S. Army Field Manual. That is why I voted to both 
approve and to declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee's extensive 
study of the RDI program.
  I strongly believe that we, as Americans, have a duty to look 
squarely at our mistakes and not to sweep them under the rug but to 
learn from them and, in the future, to do better. Nor do I believe that 
we can excuse torture or the way in which detainees--no matter who they 
were or what crimes they were guilty of--were treated. We are better 
than that, and we need a CIA Director who will ensure in an ironclad 
way that we will never return to those days, that we will follow the 
law as enacted by Congress.
  This is why I pushed Ms. Haspel, both in our hearings and in our 
private meetings, on this very point: What is her view now of the RDI 
program? And how will she react if she were asked, as Director, to 
undertake something similar in the future? In both our one-on-one 
meetings and in classified sessions before the committee, I found 
Acting Director Haspel to be forthcoming regarding her views on that 
program. However, I thought it was important that she say this in 
public, not just privately, which is why I asked her to memorialize 
those comments in writing.
  Gina Haspel wrote: ``With the benefit of hindsight and my experience 
as a senior Agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not 
one the CIA should have undertaken.''
  I believe this is a clear statement of growth as a leader and 
learning from mistakes of the past. While I also wish that she would 
have been more forceful, I also understand her reluctance to condemn 
the many men and women at the Agency who thought they were doing the 
right thing at that time.
  I first met Gina at one of her overseas postings, but I didn't really 
get to work with her until this last year, when the former Director 
appointed her to be Deputy Director of the Agency. Over the last year, 
I have found her to be professional and forthright with our 
Intelligence Committee.
  I have had the ability to have candid, unfiltered discussions with 
her. Whether the challenge we confront is North Korea, ISIS terrorists, 
or the long-term challenges of countries like China and Russia, I will 
feel safer knowing that the CIA has Ms. Haspel at the helm.
  Most importantly, I believe she is someone who can and will stand up 
to

[[Page S2749]]

the President and who will speak truth to power. If this President 
orders her to do something illegal or immoral, such as return to 
torture, she will refuse. I believe this not just because she has told 
me so or because she wrote it in a letter or even because she said it 
in front of the committee under oath; I believe it, as well, because I 
have heard it from people who have worked with her for years, people 
who know and trust her--John Brennan, Jim Clapper, Leon Panetta, Jim 
Mattis, and many, many others who have served Presidents of both 
parties. Every one of them has said that they trust her to push back on 
actions that might be inappropriate coming from this President.
  I furthermore believe that she is someone who will push back--and 
push back strongly--against any attempts by this President to undercut, 
denigrate, or ignore the professional men and women of the CIA and 
their responsibility, again--first and foremost--to speak truth to 
power, whatever the political implications may be.
  It is for these reasons that I am supporting Gina Haspel's nomination 
to be the Director of the CIA. I respect my colleagues who made a 
different decision. This is not an easy choice. I, too, have spent 
weeks working through it, but at the end of the day and as we vote, 
hopefully, later this afternoon, I believe Gina Haspel should be 
confirmed. I look forward to supporting her. I look forward to her 
being a good Director of the CIA. I look forward to her performance, 
convincing those who could not support her today that her long-term 
value to our country will make our Nation safer and that she will act 
in accordance with the principles and values of our country.
  I yield the floor and 30 seconds to my colleague, the chairman of the 
committee.
  I want to thank him, as well, for continuing to push not only Ms. 
Haspel but the Agency, the Department of Justice, and others to make 
sure that members of the committee and, to another extent, Members of 
the Senate had as much access to information as ever before with any 
CIA Director. I value our working relationship with the committee. 
Sometimes the chairman and I don't always agree, but we always deal 
with things in a straightforward manner.
  I yield the floor to my dear friend, the chairman.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. BURR. Madam President, I thank the vice chairman of the 
Intelligence Committee, and I would also reiterate what he said. This 
is one of the last bipartisan committees on the Hill. It should be. It 
is because we are entrusted with seeing things and hearing things that 
nobody else can and verifying that we live within the letter of the law 
and the Presidential directives for the rest of the 85 Members of the 
Senate and the American people. We take that very seriously.
  I rise today in support of Gina Haspel, the President's nominee to be 
the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Haspel has 
been asked to lead one of our Nation's most treasured assets, an Agency 
that works in the shadows. It requires a leader with unwavering 
integrity who will ensure that the organization operates lawfully, 
ethically, and morally.
  Gina was born in Kentucky. She was the oldest of five children. Her 
father was in the Air Force. She traveled from place to place. She told 
her dad one day that she wanted to go to West Point, only to hear her 
dad very gently remind her that West Point did not invite women. That 
did not delude her sense of service. After graduating from the 
University of Kentucky, Gina went on to work as a contractor with the 
10th Special Forces Group. It was at Fort Devens that Gina learned 
about the CIA, a place where she could serve her country along with 
other women doing clandestine work around the world. This excited her.
  In 1985 Gina swore an oath to defend the Constitution and began a 30-
plus year career of service at the Agency. Since that day, Gina Haspel 
has developed extensive overseas experience and served as Chief of 
Station in several locations around the world that we can't mention. 
But I can tell my colleagues that every time I traveled abroad to a 
location where Gina was the Chief of Station, I received the most 
thorough brief from the most organized station that I have had the 
opportunity to see.
  In Washington she has consistently proven herself a strong leader, 
rising to the role of Deputy Director of the National Clandestine 
Service and then Deputy Director of the entire Central Intelligence 
Agency. Those who saw her approach to that role say she served as a 
peacemaker, a general, a tough advocate for people, and a clear, steady 
guide for an Agency dealing with a complex web of world crisis.
  I believe Ms. Haspel's experience, her dedication to service, and her 
judgment make her a natural fit to lead the CIA as it enters a period 
of profound change and uncertainty. She is, by many accounts, the most 
qualified person the President could have chosen to lead the CIA and 
the most prepared individual in the 70-year history of this Agency. She 
is intimately familiar with the threats facing our Nation. Where others 
can discuss world events, Gina Haspel has lived those events. She has 
no learning curve.
  She has acted morally, ethically, and legally over a distinguished 
30-year career. She has earned the respect of the Agency workforce, of 
her peers, of Republicans and Democrats, of military officers, and of 
civilian security leaders, evidenced by the number of letters received 
in support of her nomination--too numerous to read.
  Gina has also the courage to speak truth to power, and she has 
demonstrated that courage time and again. She has a clear-eyed vision 
for the Agency and its future, informed by her career and her past 
experiences. Previous outside leaders of the CIA have worked hard to 
understand the Agency they were asked to run. But when a case officer, 
just back from a war zone, describes to Gina the credibility of a newly 
recruited asset and the challenges of dodging check points to get to a 
meeting with a source, she knows all the right questions to ask because 
she has been there and she has done that.
  For all these reasons, I support Gina Haspel to be the next Director 
of the Central Intelligence Agency. I am also mindful of the historic 
nature of Gina Haspel's nomination and what it means for those first-
tour case officers and junior analysts who will join the Agency this 
year and in the years to come.
  As I said at Ms. Haspel's nomination hearing, outside the Agency 
workforce, not many Americans get an opportunity to walk the halls of 
the old headquarters building. Those who do, after entering, encounter 
a series of portraits depicting former Directors of the OSS, Central 
Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency, as its name has 
morphed. Some of these Directors were loved. Some were controversial. 
Some little understood the Agency they were asked to lead. Some made 
disastrous decisions out of hubris or inexperience or both. But one 
thing is common: All the portraits are of men.
  Many want to make Gina's nomination about one small piece of the 
Agency's past. If that were the standard that this institution applies, 
John Brennan would never have been confirmed as the Director of the 
Central Intelligence Agency because when he was at the Agency, he was 
fourth in command, versus Gina Haspel, who was a GS-15. Most of us, 
though, are looking toward the Agency's future.
  Avril Haines, Meroe Park, and many others who have served or are 
currently serving have cracked the glass ceiling at the Agency. Gina is 
poised to break it. It may be impossible to measure the importance of 
that breakthrough, but I do know that it will send a signal to the 
current workforce and to the workforce of the future that a lifetime of 
commitment to the Agency and its mission can and will be rewarded. To 
those walking for hours to get to a source meeting, to those officers 
who stay up all night preparing for the Presidential daily brief, to 
those making tough calls about putting their people in harm's way to 
secure the intelligence we need to keep our country safe, to those who 
find a needle in a haystack, catch the bad guys, find the weapon 
shipments, and come home and walk past a wall of stars at the Agency, 
know that we support you and we support the job you do. You deserve a 
Director who understands who you are, what you do, what you can do, and 
what you should do. You deserve a Director who understands your 
sacrifice and has a clear vision for the future of

[[Page S2750]]

the Agency and its mission. You deserve Gina Haspel.
  I ask that we in this body this afternoon confirm Gina Haspel as 
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency without further delay.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.