Gina Haspel

Gina Cheri Walker Haspel (born October 1, 1956) is an American national security expert who was the seventh director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from May 21, 2018, to January 20, 2021. She was previously the agency's deputy director from 2017 to 2018 under Mike Pompeo, and became acting director on April 26, 2018, after Pompeo became U.S. secretary of state. Following her nomination and confirmation to the role, she was appointed by President Donald Trump as the first woman to become CIA director on a permanent basis.

Early life Haspel was born Gina Cheri Walker on October 1, 1956, in Ashland, Kentucky. Her father served in the United States Air Force.

Early career

Early CIA career Haspel joined the CIA in January 1985 as a reports officer. She held several undercover overseas positions. Her first field assignment was from 1987 to 1989 in Ethiopia, Central Eurasia, From 1996 to 1998, Haspel served as station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan.

From 2001 to 2003, her position was listed as Deputy Group Chief, Counterterrorism Center. with so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding. At that time, the Bush Administration considered the techniques legal based on a set of secret, now-rescinded legal opinions which expansively defined executive authority and narrowly defined torture. Haspel's involvement was confirmed in August 2018 when a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the George Washington University-based National Security Archive brought to light CIA cables either authorized or written by Haspel while base chief at the Thailand black site. The cables describe acts of deliberate physical torture of detainees, including waterboarding and confinement, which Haspel personally observed.

In late October 2002, Haspel became chief of base for that "black site" CIA prison located in Thailand. She worked at a site that was codenamed "Cat's Eye", which would later become known as the place where suspected al Qaeda terrorist members Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were detained and tortured with waterboarding. In early February 2017, The New York Times and ProPublica reported that these waterboardings were both conducted under Haspel. In March 2018, US officials said Haspel was not involved in the torture of Zubaydah, as she only became chief of base after Zubaydah was tortured. ProPublica and The New York Times issued corrections to their stories but noted that Haspel was involved in the torture of al-Nashiri.

Haspel played a role in the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and at other secret agency locations. A partially-declassified CIA document shows that the instruction for a new method of record keeping at the black site in Thailand, re-recording over the videos, took place in late October 2002, soon after Haspel's arrival.

In December 2014, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), a non-governmental organization that uses litigation to seek enforcement of human rights, asked that criminal charges be brought against unidentified CIA operatives after the US Senate Select Committee published its report on torture by US intelligence agencies. On June 7, 2017, the ECCHR called on the Public Prosecutor General of Germany to issue an arrest warrant against Haspel over claims she oversaw the torture of terrorism suspects. The accusation against her was centered on the case of Saudi national Abu Zubaydah. No such arrest warrant was issued.

On May 1, 2018, Spencer Ackerman, writing in The Daily Beast, reported that former CIA analyst Gail Helt had been told some of the controversial torture recordings had not been destroyed, after all. She testified many years later to the U.S. Senate about this subject:

I don't believe that torture works....Having served in that tumultuous time, I can offer you my personal commitment, clearly and without reservation, that under my leadership CIA will not restart such a detention and interrogation program.

After her service in Thailand, she served from 2004 to 2005 as Deputy Chief of the CIA's National Resources Division.

National Clandestine Service leadership Haspel served as the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action, and chief of staff for the director of the National Clandestine Service.

In 2013, John Brennan, then the director of Central Intelligence, named Haspel as acting director of the National Clandestine Service, which carries out covert operations around the globe. However, she was not appointed to the position permanently due to criticism about her involvement in the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program. Her permanent appointment was opposed by Dianne Feinstein and others in the Senate. a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

On February 8, 2017, several members of the Senate intelligence committee urged Trump to reconsider his appointment of Haspel as deputy director. Once confirmed by the Senate, Haspel became the first woman to serve as permanent Director of the CIA after 33 years of service to the agency. (Meroe Park served as Associate Deputy Director from 2013 to 2017, and acting director for three days in January 2017). Robert Baer, who once supervised Haspel at the CIA, found her to be "smart, tough, and effective. Foreign liaison services who have worked with her uniformly walked away impressed.".

Republican senator Rand Paul said that he would oppose the nomination, saying: "To really appoint the head cheerleader for waterboarding to be head of the CIA? I mean, how could you trust somebody who did that to be in charge of the CIA? To read of her glee during the waterboarding is just absolutely appalling." Soon after Paul made this statement, the allegation that Haspel had mocked those being interrogated was retracted. Doug Stafford, an aide for Paul, said: "According to multiple published, undisputed accounts, she oversaw a black site and she further destroyed evidence of torture. This should preclude her from ever running the CIA."

Republican senator and former presidential candidate John McCain called on Haspel to provide a detailed account of her participation in the CIA's detention program from 2001 to 2009, including whether she directed the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and to clarify her role in the 2005 destruction of interrogation videotapes. In the Senate, McCain was a staunch opponent of torture, having been tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. McCain further called upon Haspel to commit to declassifying the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.

Multiple senators have criticized the CIA for what they believe is selectivity in declassifying superficial and positive information about her career to generate positive coverage, while simultaneously refusing to declassify any "meaningful" information about her career.

Support from the intelligence community More than 50 former senior U.S. government officials, including six former Directors of the CIA and three former directors of national intelligence, signed a letter supporting her nomination. They included former Directors of the CIA John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Michael Morell, former Director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. In April, a group of 109 retired generals and admirals signed a letter expressing "profound concern" over Haspel's nomination due to her record and alleged involvement in the CIA's use of torture and the subsequent destruction of evidence. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting criticized press coverage that portrayed Haspel's nomination as a victory for feminism. On May 10, The Washington Post Editorial Board expressed its opposition to Haspel's nomination for not condemning the CIA's now-defunct torture program as immoral. On May 12, the first two Senate Democrats, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, announced their support for Haspel's nomination.

Confirmation On May 9, 2018, Haspel appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing.

On May 14, Haspel sent a letter to Senator Mark Warner of Virginia stating that, in hindsight, the CIA should not have operated its interrogation and detention program. Shortly thereafter, Warner announced he would back Haspel when the Senate Intelligence Committee voted on whether to refer her nomination to the full Senate. The next day, Haspel was confirmed by the full Senate, on a mostly party-line, 54–45 vote. Paul and Jeff Flake of Arizona were the only Republican nays, and six Democrats — Donnelly, Manchin, Warner, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — voted yes. McCain, who had urged his colleagues to reject her nomination, did not cast a vote, as he was hospitalized at the time.

By May 2019, Haspel had hired many women in senior positions.

In December 2020, she became the subject of a death hoax. According to social media claims, Haspel was either killed, injured, or arrested in a CIA raid on a server farm in Frankfurt. Several fact-checking projects debunked these claims, and were unable to find any evidence that Haspel had died or that a raid had taken place. The CIA announced her retirement after 36 years of service, via a tweet, on January 19, 2021, one day prior to the presidential transition from Trump to Joe Biden. William J. Burns had been selected by Biden on January 11 to succeed Haspel pending Senate confirmation. Burns was sworn in as the new director on March 19, 2021.

After retiring from the CIA, Haspel joined the law firm King & Spalding in July 2021, where she has advised clients on information technology and cybersecurity. As of 2024, her title at King & Spalding was "Senior National Security Advisor."

Awards and recognition Haspel has received a number of awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism, the Donovan Award, the Intelligence Medal of Merit, and the Presidential Rank Award She resides in Ashburn, Virginia.