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The Senate confirmation hearing for Gina Haspel, nominated by Trump to replace Mike Pompeo as head of the CIA, will take place on Wednesday. Haspel is reportedly so alarmed as to how that hearing might go that on Friday, she told the White House she was going to withdraw her nomination—initiating a frantic last-minute press by White House officials to convince her not to.
Taken aback at her stance, senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Va., to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon. Discussions stretched several hours, officials said, and the White House was not entirely sure she would stick with her nomination until Saturday afternoon, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. [...]
Trump learned of the drama Friday, calling officials from his trip to Dallas. He decided to push for Haspel to remain as the nominee after initially signaling he would support whatever decision was taken, administration officials said.
The questions Gina Haspel expects to face are over her role in CIA-backed torture of prisoners during the George W. Bush administration. The CIA has not been forthcoming about her full role in that program, but at the very least Haspel ordered the destruction of videotapes of those torture sessions, helping to block a full accounting of the program demanded by lawmakers. Her nomination is publicly opposed by dozens of military officers who condemned her role in that program and are demanding her actions be declassified.
The George Bush administration blocked both attempts to fully investigate the White House-supported torture of prisoners and efforts to prosecute those Americans who participated in it, but Haspel's hearing will likely center around her role, the CIA's role, and the continued lack of accountability for actions that clearly, under national laws, constitute war crimes. That Haspel made the decision to abandon her nomination rather than face those questions gives some hint as to how she believes the hearing will go; that Trump and his staff pressed her to stay on despite her misgivings highlights, once again, the Trump team's complete indifference as to Haspel's own connections to one of the most monstrous decisions of the previous Republican administration.